


EXPEDITION

by sulfuric



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, F/F, Gen, So Much found family u guys, definitely NOT a very thinly veiled combination of interstellar the martian and tmr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-07 10:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 47,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulfuric/pseuds/sulfuric
Summary: Fourteen years after solar flares ravaged the surface of the earth, decimating billions of lives, the state of the planet is declared to be beyond salvation. It's then that WCKD decides to finally set their ultimate back-up plan into action: recolonization. After spending their entire lives helping develop the mission to save the human race, ten teens are sent into space with a one-way ticket to a carefully selected exoplanet light-years away. But when communications to Earth are severed and their supposed "paradise" planet isn't all it's cracked up to be, they must adapt in order to survive against all odds.





	1. verdict: oh shit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tommyglued](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommyglued/gifts).



> this was supposed to be published like. a Full year ago but i guess that's just how it goes lads
> 
> [watch the trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkvbhIPvj_I)   
>  [tumblr tag](http://00250.tumblr.com/tagged/expedition)
> 
> a new chapter will be posted everyday. this is for [angie](http://newtmnas.tumblr.com) it's her birthday today so this fic is a month-long celebration. thank u all for taking this journey w me and my tmr kids i love u all

 

> **LOG ENTRY 001684459 | ID A1 TERESA AGNES | 234.3.15**
> 
> It’s hard to say if this will ever reach another human soul, but it’s worth a shot. I suppose this is for the official record: I, Teresa Agnes, along with eight other members of the Astronomical Ventures department of WCKD, are the survivors of EXPEDITION-1, a WCKD astronomical venture. Our mission is to preserve the human race by colonizing outside of our solar system. Our current location is on the planet Proxima b, orbiting the star Proxima Centauri, RA 14h 29m 42.94853s dec −62° 40′ 46.1631″.
> 
> On this console, there are years worth of logs and mission data that we’ve kept, along with pre-launch data and correspondences with WCKD members on earth. Anything after the year 2233 is solely data from the original ten mission members, as communications with earth were severed.
> 
> There’s something on the horizon. We can see it from where we are, on the mountains. It’ll only be minutes, now. We don’t know who, or what, we just know that it’s coming. The only thing we can do is wait.
> 
> Let it be known that we tried our best.

 

 

It’s a rather warm October morning, not at all suitable for what should be considered a bleak occasion. The sun - the _goddamned_ sun - is shining hot and bright. Not as if anyone within the WCKD facility that’s under the age of eighteen would have even _seen_ the sun in at least a decade, let alone remember it. Still, it was usually the main topic of discussion.

Teresa swivels in her chair, looking through lists she knows will most likely be useless within a matter of hours. She tries not to let her nerves show through, concealing the cracking of her knuckles underneath the desk. The verdict should be decided any minute.

Then, a voice behind her. “So, whaddya think, earth gone to shit or earth gone completely to shit?”

Teresa rolls her eyes, allowing herself one moment of relaxation before spinning fully around to face the person behind her. “Oh, definitely completely to shit,” she says easily, leaning back in her chair. Then, she adds, joking tone faded, “Minho, I still don’t understand how you can be so casual about this. They’re going to be back in literally half an hour with the verdict.”

Minho shrugs, falling into the seat beside Teresa. He scans the papers scattered over the desk - shuttle dimensions, booster specs, and lists upon lists of supplies. “Yeah, whatever. Think they’ll send the supplies out anyway?”

“I think they’re going to send _us_.”

Minho opens his mouth, no doubt readying for a sarcastic retort, but he shuts it when he realizes what she said. “Us?”

Teresa resumes cracking her knuckles, this time on her other hand. “Yes, us! The back-up plan, our life’s work, all that shit?”

“You really think they’d do it this early?”

“If there’s no point in trying to save the Earth, yeah.”

They both remain silent for several seconds, brains wrapping around the prospect of their literal reason for existing actually starting to carry itself out. Earth’s back-up: a bunch of teenagers.

Minho blows out a long breath, shaking himself out of the sullen haze. “You coming to lunch?”

Teresa shakes her head. “No. I’m gonna wait.”

“Brenda go with them?”

“Yeah.”

Minho smiles weakly, resting a hand on Teresa’s shoulder. In a rare moment of tenderness, his voice softens. “They’d never make us leave without letting you say goodbye, Teresa.”

She nods, making herself believe the words as she says them. “I know.”

 

The same October morning, however slightly less warm, around 200 kilometres north, WCKD chancellor Ava Paige makes her way toward the lowering ramp of a berg. Following her are two young engineers clad in WCKD lab wear, with _Astronomical Ventures Department_ embroidered on their chests. The three all share the same stricken expression, faces washed out into a sickly pale as they board the berg. Not a single word is spoken, however they all have the same phrase ringing in their heads: “The state of the planet Earth has hereby been officially declared by the Global Scientific Union to be past the point of salvation.”

It’s a mouthful of a sentence, one that weighs more than a thousand flare-ridden suns combined. The one that follows it, however, is just a bit more heart-crushing for one WCKD engineer in particular: “The GSU expressly recommends the immediate commencement of the Back-Up Plan, to be carried out by the Astronomical Ventures department of WCKD, North American sector.”

Aboard the craft, Ava Paige sits down and clenches her teeth, setting her jaw. She picks up the red phone and lifts it to her ear, the line already dialing the sole number it’s programmed to call. Then, with a steady voice, she says, “Begin initiation of phase three.”

 

Ten minutes later, back at the WCKD complex, a piece of cornbread is crumbled between a pair of fingers.

“Pretty sure it’s supposed to go _in_ your mouth, Aris,” Rachel says, laughing.

The corner of Aris’ mouth quirks upwards as his eyes meet his best friend’s, and he drops the disintegrating food back onto his plate. The rest of it remains virtually untouched, as most of the other trays scattered around the cafeteria-grade table.

Minho appears then, sliding onto the end of the bench with his own tray. “You guys ready for the end of days?” he says, fake enthusiasm abundant. He’s met with a few grumbles and a matching pair of eye rolls from Sonya and Harriet.

“Where’s Teresa?” Newt asks, scanning the large room.

“She wanted to wait for them to get back.”

Thomas frowns then, turning his head back toward the eastern door of the cafeteria. “She seemed really worried this morning,” he says, facing the group again, “She wouldn’t stop going over the data.”

The table is quiet for a moment, each person lost in their own silent reflection, until Gally speaks up. “Guys, we all know she’s right,” he admits, saying what nobody else wanted to. “We’ve all seen the data. There’s no way the verdict is going to be anything other than past salvation - Teresa’s just the only one who hasn’t convinced themselves otherwise.”

Minho’s jaw softens and he looks up, eyebrows knit together. “She told me she thinks they’re going to initiate back-up early.” At this, a weird sort of silence falls over the table.

Then, Two seconds later, the alarm begins to blare.

 

>   
> 
> 
> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 225.6.7, Time 1345**
> 
> **TO: Partners, Astronomical Ventures**
> 
> **FROM: Kevin Anderson, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: Final Candidates**
> 
>  
> 
> The final candidates and tentative mission members for project Back-Up have, after much testing and deliberation, been chosen. These children have shown the most promise in their intelligence, problem-solving, learning skills, and physical and mental health. The candidates are as follows:
> 
> Thomas, Teresa, Aris, Rachel, Newt, Minho, Sonya, Harriet, Gally, and Winston
> 
> They will be immediately transported to the AV wing of WCKD facilities and fast-tracked into the development of the project and study of the related fields. It is worth noting that candidates Thomas, Teresa, Aris, and Rachel are by far the most promising and tested outstandingly in each category. The project would benefit greatly from a more focused involvement of these four.
> 
> It is of the utmost importance that we maintain the integrity of each candidate throughout the duration of the project, putting emphasis on education, curiosity, and positive reinforcement. We must be sensitive; should they discover the real purpose of their mission too early, the resulting emotional reaction could detriment the progress and completion of the project. We must not let this happen.
> 
> Thank you all for your continued dedication to the project.


	2. verdict: OH SHIT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> teresa is sad, wckd gets sketchy, and janson is an asswipe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note that the logs and emails and stuff like. Jump In Time so pay attention to dates (mainly year) for reference the like. Present Time is oct 7 2231!!!!!

In the lonely expanse of Lab II, Teresa’s heart leaps into her throat as the room is bathed in chirpy sirens and flashing green lights. She knows what it means. A part of her - most of her, really - isn’t surprised. They’d all known the day would come eventually. Soon enough, security would find her, (surely nice and pissed that she wasn’t in the cafeteria with the others) and take her to the other candidates - her best friends - to start the intensive training phase of their mission. They would inform her of the change in phase, as per protocol, and politely ask her permission to escort her to the training facilities. She would submit, also as per protocol, and walk down the halls where she grew up, for the very last time.

But for now, Teresa could go to the hangar. It was there that Chancellor Paige, Brenda, and Jorge would return, no doubt with a million new tasks to fulfill in order for Teresa and the others to begin their training. They’d be seeing a lot more of the Chancellor than normal, even more so than Teresa, Thomas, Aris, and Rachel already did. But Brenda and Jorge would likely be hidden away making preparations on the shuttle. 

Everyone in the AV department (or, as the final candidates had taken to calling themselves, the AV club) loved Brenda and Jorge. They weren’t like Teresa and the others, taken at a young age and raised to be scientists; they’d come to WCKD on their own, after surviving the flares and trekking across the scorch because they’d heard it was a safe haven of sorts. Chancellor Anderson had agreed to let them stay only because of their skills in engineering and mechanics - Jorge being a former pilot and flight engineer and Brenda being his apprentice before the flares - the agreement worked out swimmingly. Everyone grew to love their toughness and their spunk, and they grew to love the dedication and drive of everyone at WCKD - some members more than others. 

Teresa sat on the floor of the hallway that stretched out in front of the hangar. Though she could see inside the thick glass windows, she didn’t have the authority nor the clearance to enter the hangar or even open the doors. The AV club kids hadn’t been allowed outside in all of Teresa’s ten years at WCKD. It was for their own good, truly. The outside world was dangerous - hell, it’d just been announced doomed, if the still-going sirens were any indication - and WCKD couldn’t risk letting humanity’s only hope out into it. More so, as explained by the department’s psychologist, it would be a lot less mentally and emotionally destructive for the AV club to leave a world if they never got a chance to feel like they were a part of it. 

It sounded terrible, but it actually made sense. Teresa considered it as she leaned against the door of a linen closet, waiting. She knew from her studies that long duration space travel took a very large toll on the mental state of a person. Ever since the Ares III disaster of 2036, NASA, which would eventually merge with CSA to become the North American Astronomical Union, started selecting astronauts with less emotional ties to Earth for missions like Europa and Titan. The less they had to miss, the more they could concentrate on their missions. And with space travel, that often decided between life or death in certain situations.

Teresa and the other candidates had all been taken in from an extremely young age for the express purpose of saving the human race. The strongest of their few emotional ties were each other, so they weren’t leaving much behind. They knew nothing of the scorched wasteland they called their home other than the raw scientific data telling them why they had to leave it. It was the perfect recipe for successful deep space travel - if you left out the part about ten teenagers being held completely responsible for the recolonization and longevity of the human race.

Teresa is just beginning to dwell on  _ that  _ little technicality when the ceiling of the hangar splits apart to reveal a grey sky. 

 

Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, the other candidates - official mission members, now, Thomas supposes - are beginning to stand up from their table, slowly as they’re watched by a few dozen pairs of eyes from all around them. Security personnel comes through the northern doors, clad in protective gear that was really a bit over the top for the task of rounding up a bunch of teenagers from lunch. Still, they march in single file, one guard per person, toward the table in the centre of the room. The AV club shuffles together in a line, shoulders pressed lightly together as the guards came closer.

It all feels a little ritualistic to Thomas, and he’s all too aware of the other personnel watching like it was some kind of car crash. As the guards step in front of them, Thomas’ mind goes immediately to Teresa. There would probably be repercussions for her absence.

“Where’s the last one?” the leader of them asks, as if he was an impatient schoolteacher speaking to a lot of children. Thomas frowns.

Minho shared a quick look with Newt before clearing his throat. “Lab two,” he says dryly, knowing good and well that Teresa had probably already moved from the lab to the hangar. The leader turns without any indication of acknowledgement and the others begin to recite their scripted notice of phase shift at the exact same time. 

It’s what the gladers have been expecting - practicing, even - for two years. Except the part where the guards don’t recite their scripted notice and use brute force.

  
  


> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 225.2.24, Time 2030**
> 
> **TO: Partners, Astronomical Ventures**
> 
> **FROM: Kevin Anderson, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: Progress Report, Subjects A1, A2**
> 
>  
> 
> It appears as if A1 and A2 have become close friends within the past few months between classes, evaluations, meals, and social time. This is wonderful news - both A1 and A2 are very strong candidates, and emotional bonding between mission members is essential for mission success. 
> 
> Starting tomorrow, we will be putting A1 and A2 together in an extra lesson every other day, based on problem-solving. Our goal is to train their minds to work in different and creative ways, and also to train the subjects themselves to work together in these environments. Being able to tackle ‘fun’ challenges together will translate very well to working out solutions in potential life-or-death situations. While it may seem early to be thinking of phases three and four, it is absolutely crucial for the subjects to have these skills and habits ingrained into them as early as possible. 
> 
> Additionally, we will be monitoring the behavioural benefits this supplementary time together may have upon A1 and A2 - it’s been noted that A1 is extraordinarily obedient and loyal to the organization while A2 has recently been found acting out more often than previously noted. Incidents include attempting to leave room after lights-out, skipping lessons, and a general distaste for daily activities (detailed reports found in A2’s personal logs).
> 
> All incidents have transpired in the past six months, the past three of which we’ve been evaluating A2’s psychological state through biweekly sessions with Dr. Trent. Because of A2’s family history of susceptibility to mental illness, along with several symptoms presented in A2 himself, including but not limited to: loss of appetite, excessive and ongoing worry and tension, characterizable fidgeting and restlessness, sleeping issues, and irregular breathing patterns - Dr. Trent has made a conclusive diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder being presented in A2. 
> 
> In light of this, A2 has been prescribed medication (details available in A2’s medical logs) to be taken daily in order to combat these symptoms. We also hope that this ‘fun’ new lesson with A1 will aid in reducing A2’s recently developed stress and apprehension towards attending daily lessons. This far, it seems as if the biweekly sessions have been of great help already.
> 
> Progress in A2’s mental health will be updated biweekly, available in his medical logs. It is absolutely crucial that we keep a close eye on A2’s behaviour in the coming months - he is one of our strongest candidates for project Back-Up, and the fate of the human race may very well be resting on his shoulders in a very short amount of time.

 

 

The berg lands, and a moment later the hatch underneath is opened. Teresa stands, eager. As expected, three bodies make their way down the ramp and head in Teresa’s direction. As they approach, she can see their faces - a mixture of stoicism, dread, and pale shock - come into focus. A few seconds later, loud footsteps round the corner as Teresa studies the shining tracks stretching down Brenda’s cheeks, and it’s then that she knows: something is  _ wrong _ .

She doesn’t have much time to think before a unfortunately familiar voice sounds from down the hall, “Ms. Agnes, you’re aware of the alarm sounding at the moment, correct?”

Teresa has to resist the urge to roll her eyes.  _ Janson.  _ She would recognize that condescending tone anywhere. “Yes,” she says, turning her body toward him slowly, eyes still fixed on the window to the hangar. “I am, sir,” she finishes, trying to make her voice as neutral as possible despite the feeling of dread crawling up her throat. 

“Then I’ll assume you know what that means, being that you designed this system yourself, Ms. Agnes.”

“That I am,” Teresa says, glancing over to the man for the first time. He was walking slowly, in a way that made him look like he thought he held all the power in the world. Teresa was an executive member of the AV department of WCKD - a much more important asset than Janson, really, yet he still treated Teresa and her friends like they were inferior. It was irritating, to say the least. 

“Lovely,” Janson says, clasping his hands together. Teresa grimaces, and sends a quick glance back to the hangar - they were almost at the door now. Janson speaks again, this time with a near giddy malice lacing through his words. “Then I’m sure you’re more than ready to be escorted to phase three.”

After he speaks, a few things happen in very quick succession: The words  _ phase three _ echo in Teresa’s mind and Janson lets out a low chuckle. Teresa whips her head back to the window, where Chancellor Paige, Jorge, and Brenda stand, the Chancellor with one arm held out, blocking the other two from the door to the hallway. Brenda’s lip begins to tremble ever so slightly as Teresa’s heart leaps drops into the pit of her stomach. Before she has time to process what part of her already knew would happen, Teresa’s arms are grabbed and twisted behind her by rough hands. Her protests mean nothing to Janson; only Jorge and Brenda cringe at the distress of her shouting. Teresa can’t stop the panic as it begins to take her over, the sirens she’d almost forgotten suddenly screaming in her ears.  _ It’s not supposed to happen like this.  _

Within a second she’s already being shoved down the hall, away from the hangar and the stone-faced Chancellor. Teresa twists her head back, fighting against Janson’s vice-like grip to get one last glance through the window for some indication, some clue as to what exactly is happening - what went so wrong for the Chancellor to skip a phase entirely, to rush the launch and disregard the basic ethical guidelines of the mission that she’d crafted so carefully. 

The last thing Teresa sees before the window is out of sight is Brenda, now pressed against it, mouth forming words too far away for Teresa to hear or see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let! me know! what u think!!
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://00250.tumblr.com)


	3. friendship thrusters FULL BLAST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> waiting gets boring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE WHOLE BIT AT THE START ABOUT THE RIP IN SPACETIME ISNT ACTUALLY A THING (YET??) but i tried to be mostly accurate for everything else so really just take that as you will  
> enjoy!!

> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 226.2.17, Time 1801**
> 
> **TO: Partners, Astronomical Ventures**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: Phase Three timeline; new recruits**
> 
>  
> 
> We have received the requested data from LIGO (which you can find attached to this message) and now have an estimate of the possible timelines for Phase Three of project Back-Up. For those of you not involved in the physics associated with the space travel of Back-Up, I will elaborate on why this data is crucial to mission success. 
> 
> Though never attempted before, the method of travel between galaxies that Back-Up will use is theoretically correct, all physical principles sound in its methods. Thanks to the discovery of gravitational waves two hundred years ago, technology has been developed to observe black holes much more closely. From this, we discovered that if two black holes of high enough mass collide at a high enough speed, (called “ripping mass” and “ripping speed’, respectively) the resulting gravitational wave will distort space-time significantly enough to create a small rip in the so called “fabric” of this space-time. This allows matter to pass through to another part of space-time. 
> 
> This is how we will be sending the candidates to their new home. After the appearance of such a phenomenon in our own solar system in the mid 2100’s, NAAU sent a probe to assess the prospect of life on the planets found in the Proxima system and found several promising candidates. This number has since been narrowed down to one, and it is where we intend to send our own. 
> 
> The data from LIGO suggests that the rip will be open until 2256, which is plenty of time for us to complete phases one and two before initiating phase three. Ideally, phase three should be initiated five to ten years before the reproductive peak of our selected mission members. We have a lot of work before us, but I assure you all that a deadline will do much in terms of productivity. 
> 
> Additionally, we have acquired two new project members within our rocketry and flight division. Their names are Jorge Gallarga and Brenda Despain. Please take note that they are not what you would consider normal WCKD personnel - they could be described as “rough and tumble”, coming from the Scorch rather than dedicated programs or protection facilities as many of our staff have. However, I urge you to treat them with the same respect you would afford any other staff member - Jorge and Brenda are quite brilliant at their craft and will be extremely valuable to our mission’s completion. 
> 
> For now, we will continue to educate the final candidates, who, as several staff members have alerted me, have started calling themselves the “AV club”, a good sign in terms of group bonding - and to conceal their true role within all of this. As Thomas, Teresa, Aris, and Rachel move forward with the development of the project this year, they will be informed of my “suggestion” as a way to slowly introduce their intended involvement. 
> 
> Though it may seem unethical or unfair to keep such important information from the subjects, we must keep in mind that it is to preserve the emotional health and desire to learn of the candidates. WCKD’s purpose is to provide long-term solutions when catastrophe strikes. Though it may seem more just to tell the whole truth, now, we must think what will most benefit the project - and the human race - in the long term. 

  
  


Newt chews on his lip and tries to block out the chatter around him. It’s hard, seeing as the room they were  _ escorted  _ (read: manhandled) to isn’t much bigger than one of their individual bunks. Confusion and concern bounce off the walls, echoing over each other again and again. 

It’s Thomas’ voice that pulls above the rest. “This isn’t-” he pauses as the room quiets “-this isn’t how it was supposed to happen.”

“I think we’ve all gathered that much, Thomas,” Minho says. He sits on the ground - no chairs in the room - with his legs stretched out in front of him. 

“He’s right,” Rachel chimes in, “We helped design these parts of the procedure. It was all supposed to be different.” Her forehead is already creased with worry lines as she slides down the wall to sit directly across from Minho. 

Newt blows out a long sigh as the room falls into a thick, heavy silence. It wasn’t like they all hadn’t seen this coming; the verdict would pretty much guarantee project Back-Up was a go. But it would have been nice for WCKD - who, mind, the AV club had worked closely with for their entire  _ lives _ \- to have at least told them what was going on. Newt feels like they deserved that much at the very least. Whatever WCKD has them doing now - it’s annoying, pretty bloody suspicious, and enough to put everyone on edge. 

Nearly everyone has resigned to sitting quietly on the floor (or, in Thomas’ case, pacing aimlessly) when the door is opened again. Teresa is led or, more accurately, shoved, into the room by the taller guard from the cafeteria - Newt can see the sneer through the guard’s mask now, and he frowns instantly. Janson, a right prick, wouldn’t have had any qualms with treating Teresa like shit. Obviously.

Janson shuts the door again without a word, leaving the ten teens trapped with no explanation. Everyone looks expectantly at Teresa.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she says, almost viciously wiping at the tears on her cheeks as if they were ants crawling over her face.

“Join the club,” Harriet says under her breath, letting out a huff of air that somewhat resembles a laugh. A bitter, dejected, half-assed laugh, but still a laugh. This seems to bring down the tension in the room, even if just by a little bit. Teresa sits down beside Minho and starts picking at her cuticles, but her expression appears slightly more relaxed. Newt notices  _ everyone  _ is slightly more relaxed - hell, even he feels less anxious with all of them now present.

It’s a funny thing, the ten of them together. Literally raised together, and in an environment with no other kids their age, they’d formed what Newt could only guess was an extremely unique bond. Thomas had even joked about overhearing the psych personnel worry about codependency issues - Newt supposed that that could be the case, but he was pretty sure what they had went beyond that. When they were all together, they felt better. Happier.  _ Safer _ . And now, with each member of their group - club - all together, the current predicament was one that they could all handle that much more. 

A few minutes of silence pass before a muffled giggle emerges from one corner of the room. “Guy,” Winston says, biting down hard on his lip, “I gotta fart.”

“Oh my god-”

“Please, no.”

“ _ Winston! _ ”

“Winston, I swear to every fucking God-”

“Do not.”

Groans and protests erupt from every person, a few already plugging their nostrils.

“I’m sorry guys, but I can’t hold it on this one-”

“Terrible!”

“Winston.”

The yelling doesn’t cease as Winston lets out a sigh of apparent relief. Rachel takes off her shoe and lobs it across the room, narrowly missing Winston’s head. 

Gally ducks, shielding himself. “Hey!”

“I wasn’t aiming for you, dipshit!”

“Oh, god, Winston,” Harriet moans, covering her mouth and nose. The smell of Winston’s fart begins to seep into the air of the tiny room, saturating everyone’s respiratory systems with what can only be described as highly toxic gases.

Thomas starts to gag. “We’re all gonna die.”

“Winston, you have truly outdone yourself on this one,” Sonya deadpans, voice nasally with her nose pinched firmly between her finger and thumb. 

“No way,” Aris starts, voice equally distorted, “there was this one time we were doing a landing simulation together and he let it rip so bad, I swear we almost failed the sim ‘cause I nearly passed out.” 

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad!” Winston defends. 

Aris just stares at him in glowering disbelief. “I almost  _ died. _ ”

“Hey, guys!” Sonya pipes, trying to get the room’s attention over all the chatter. “If the volume is, let’s say-” she stops, scanning the dimensions of the room quickly before continuing, “-seven hundred and fifty cubic feet, and we use standard ambient temperature and pressure, how many moles-”

“Sonya!” The collective shout causes her to trail off, frowning.

“Jeez, just trying to lighten the mood.”

Gally snorts. “With science?”

“We _ are _ science!” Sonya exclaims, rolling her eyes. 

Minho coughs, uncovering his mouth and nose for the first time since the fart. “Why don’t you science how long the Chancellor has to come get us before her precious candidates suffocate from overexposure to deadly fart gases?” Almost everyone erupts into giggles at this. They’d seemed to forgotten, at least in this moment, their immediate circumstances. 

Newt catches Teresa’s gaze from across the room, distant and glassy, and he offers a smile in her direction. The corners of her lips nudge upwards in response. 

“Hey,” Minho says quietly, so just Teresa can hear, “you all good?”

Teresa doesn’t look at him, and waits a moment for the chatter to start back up again before responding. “Janson took me just as they got back.”

“God.” Minho says, at a loss for words. After a moment, he tries, “But this is just the start of training, there’s no way we can’t see them again by-”

“No, Minho,” Teresa interrupts, louder than intended, tears already starting to form again  in her eyes. The remaining nine fall silent and all eyes turn to Teresa. She swallows, hard, and addresses the room. “When Janson took me, he told me-”

Then, the door beside Teresa - previously unopened - swings open to reveal Chancellor Paige, flanked by two guards. No one speaks, and no one moves. After an eternity, the Chancellor clears her throat.

“If you’d all come with me, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment what u think lads will winston's farts Actually kill them all  
> [tumblr](http://00250.tumblr.com)


	4. teresa's got some 'splainin to do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the av club gets some answers.

> **FILE: TEXT DOCUMENT | TITLE: TRANSCRIPT A1 + MCH24 | 227.5.20**
> 
>  
> 
> Audio transcript of security footage camera #08, Teresa and Brenda, 227.5.19, as per request of David Trent
> 
>  
> 
> 22:49
> 
> Teresa: Are you sure they won’t get mad at us for being here?
> 
> Brenda: They won’t. And besides, you’re their star candidate. They wouldn’t get mad at you.
> 
> Teresa: Well you’re their star engineer - wait, do you think there are cameras in this wing?
> 
> Brenda: C’mon, Ter.
> 
> Teresa: Ter?
> 
> Brenda: Yeah, I’m giving you a nickname. Like it?
> 
> Teresa: …Yeah.
> 
> Brenda: Good. I like it too.
> 
> Teresa: I like you.
> 
> Brenda: I like you too. 
> 
>  
> 
> …
> 
>  
> 
> Brenda: I’m glad I have you. This place can get kind of lonely sometimes.
> 
> Teresa: I know. I wish they’d let you hang out with us more. The others really like you too.
> 
> Brenda: But not how you like me.
> 
> Teresa: No. I think we’re special.
> 
> Brenda: I think so too. 
> 
> Teresa: I’m glad you and Jorge decided to come here.
> 
> Brenda: Me too. 
> 
> Teresa: Maybe I can ask them if - did you hear that?
> 
> Brenda: Hear what?
> 
> Teresa: I think I heard someone coming. We have to go!

  
  


“We’re  _ launching? _ ” Gally asks incredulously, eyebrows shooting upwards. His words echo in the room as everyone stands, shocked silent, taking in the Chancellor’s announcement. They’d followed her down what had to be over a dozen long corridors, ones not even the four leading candidates - Thomas, Teresa, Aris, and Rachel - had seen before. The AV club couldn’t have gotten back to the main facilities if they tried. 

The Chancellor disregards Gally’s anger completely. “Yes. As you all may have predicted, the Union has made their decision.”

“But why now? The rip won’t close for at least another twenty-five years.” Aris declares. He’d  _ worked  _ on that data with NAAU. 

Ava shakes her head slowly. “Our prediction was wrong. It’ll be gone by the end of this decade.” Everyone tries to take this in. There’s nowhere to sit in the room - essentially a bigger version of the one they’d waited in before - so they just stare at the ground, or each other. 

“But,” Thomas starts, eyebrows knitting together in a mixture of confusion and something else entirely. “we still have at least another year before the shuttle will be even  _ near  _ ready for launch, and-”

“No,” Teresa says quietly. 

“No?” Thomas asks, turning toward her, fear starting to leak into his voice.

Teresa takes a breath, and looks up at the Chancellor rather than Thomas. Her expression mirrors his: confused, intrigued. “They finished preparations almost three months ago, they just didn’t tell us.” Her voice is still quiet, almost ashamed. “Right?” she asks this directly to the Chancellor, still ignoring the stares of her friends. 

The Chancellor only smiles, edges of her lips ghosting upwards. “That’s right,” she says calmly. 

Thomas is frowning, and he still doesn’t turn away from Teresa. “How could you not tell us?”

“Thomas, I-”

The Chancellor speaks over Teresa, eyes closed in an obvious attempt to maintain her patience. “WIth the verdict and new data regarding the rip, we must accelerate our mission’s schedule.” She waits before continuing, leaving the AV club a few awful moments to consider  _ how  _ accelerated that schedule might be. They were supposed to be leaving in ten years - more than enough time to prepare to leave a world that was never truly theirs. What would their new launch time be? Five years? Two? 

“After this discussion, you each will immediately be moved to your designated pre-launch testing areas to undergo your last set of evaluations before phase three begins. Launch is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at ten am.” 

  
  


> **WCKD ASTRONOMICAL VENTURES | PROJECT BACK-UP | OFFICIAL MISSION MEMBERS | UPDATED 231.10.10 BY D. TRENT**
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Thomas 
> 
> **TITLE:** Executive Mission Member A2
> 
> **AGE:** 16
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Flight Operations, Reactor Tech, Chemistry
> 
> **NOTES:** A2 has been with WCKD longer than any of the other candidates, graciously given to WCKD as a part of project IMMUNE in 221. A2 has always tested well, particularly in puzzles of logic and problem-solving. He exhibits refined leadership qualities, though his impulsivity and anxious tendencies ultimately prohibited him from being chosen as mission commander. A2 has remained in good physical condition during his years at WCKD (despite his asthma, acquired before coming to the facilities), testing at the top of the group. Damage from childhood traumas (events in the Scorch, being separated from his mother) has always been present in the form of night terrors and has recently manifested in the form of developing mental illness. Despite this, A2 remains one of WCKD’s brightest subjects, and will no doubt bring our mission to success.
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Teresa
> 
> **TITLE:** Executive Mission Member A1
> 
> **AGE:** 16
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** System Operations, Computer Engineering, Mathematics
> 
> **NOTES:** A1 is WCKD’s brightest star. Fully proficient in almost all fields, A1 has been chosen as commander of EXPD-1. Her leadership qualities, work ethic, and decision-making skills have all proven her to be a worthy candidate. She consistently tests well physically, and is mentally one of the strongest candidates we have seen during her ten years here at WCKD. A1 has proven to be very trusting, and grows attached to other people very quickly - perhaps her one downfall. 
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Aris
> 
> **TITLE:** Executive Mission Member B1
> 
> **AGE:** 15
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Chemical Engineering, System Operations, Computer Science
> 
> **NOTES:** B1 is perhaps the most quiet and reserved of all the subjects, though absolutely one of the most gifted. B1 shows great enthusiasm and passion for his areas of specialty, thriving in our simulated lab environments. He will be a great asset to the crew. B1 lies in the middle of the pack both physically and mentally speaking, notably tiring out easily after a long day of evaluations. He often leaves the large decision-making to the others, seemingly uncomfortable with large amounts of responsibility. He is most reserved around WCKD personnel, but has been observed to be the most open and contributing when working solely with the other subjects.
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Rachel
> 
> **TITLE:** Executive Mission Member B2
> 
> **AGE:** 17
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Biological Engineering, Botany, Medicine
> 
> **NOTES:** B2 is one of the most passionate of the subjects. She shows the most enthusiasm toward her own areas of study, though often disregards other tasks and evaluations she deems “boring”. Tests above average both physically and mentally, and spends a good portion of her free time utilizing the building’s exercise and sporting facilities. Has taken a liking to squash, which was introduced to B2 several years ago in order to help with channeling her anger. It has proven successful in reducing the amount of outbursts against WCKD personnel. 
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Minho
> 
> **TITLE:** Mission Member A7
> 
> **AGE:** 17
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** EVA specialist, Survival Tactics, Geography
> 
> **NOTES:** A7 is one of WCKD’s most difficult subjects. Despite efforts early on in correcting his behavior, it quickly became apparent that A7’s “attitude problem” is but a fundamental aspect of his personality. Though his tendency to butt heads with WCKD personnel is an annoyance at the very least, it would be unfair to ignore the positive aspects that come from A7’s nature: his tenacity merits him great skills within his specialities, in which he is by far our most talented subject. A7 has consistently tested at the very top of the group physically, and slightly below average mentally - it is worth noting that while A7 is highly sarcastic and witty, it is often used as a defense mechanism for underlying insecurities.
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Newt
> 
> **TITLE:** Mission Member A5
> 
> **AGE:** 16
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Physical Sciences, Planetary Sciences, Optics
> 
> **NOTES:** A5 is WCKD’s most interesting subject. A5 was acquired much later than the other subjects, from a much more precarious environment than the other subjects. There is still much unknown about A5’s past, even after extensive analysis of his notebooks from his time before WCKD. Additionally, A5 has several health issues both mental and physical, which have slightly hindered his progress here at WCKD. Despite this, there is no doubting that A5 is a very bright individual, and perhaps a necessary addition to the crew in terms of morale. 
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Sonya
> 
> **TITLE:** Mission Member B4
> 
> **AGE:** 15
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Reactor Tech
> 
> **NOTES:** B4 is without a doubt WCKD’s most gifted subject. B4 has consistently tested at the top of the group mentally (though slightly below average physically). She shows great, great promise in the field of mathematics, though she is no less brilliant in all other fields. B4 shows a level of natural intelligence that is unmatched among the other subjects. She also exhibits a very high level of creativity. It is also worth noting that B4 is one of the more emotional subjects, her feelings sometimes clouding her judgement and efficiency. 
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Harriet
> 
> **TITLE:** Mission Member B6
> 
> **AGE:** 15
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Flight Operations, EVA Specialist, Foreign Language
> 
> **NOTES:** B6 is one of the group’s more quiet subjects, however she has no issue in contributing to group discussion and problem-solving sessions. B6 is unprecedented in her results achieved during flight simulations, exhibiting an ability to focus and make quick decisions like no other. B6 tests well both mentally and physically, and shows good leadership qualities. 
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Gally
> 
> **TITLE:** Mission Member A9
> 
> **AGE:** 17
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, Planetary Sciences
> 
> **NOTES:** A9 shows great promise in all aspects of his education and testing, but shows very high levels intuition and creativity in particular. He is socially average, and sometimes tends to spend more time alone than the other subjects. Along with A7, A9 is the most defiant towards WCKD. A9 tests very well both mentally and physically. 
> 
>  
> 
> **NAME:** Winston
> 
> **TITLE:** Mission Member A8
> 
> **AGE:** 16
> 
> **SPECIALTY:** Biology, Biomechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
> 
> **NOTES:** A8 has come into his own as the resident medical specialist within the subjects. His interest and efficacy in the field of biology has led him to a very advanced understanding of the material he studies, one which matches that of WCKD’s senior scientists. A8 tests well mentally and physically. 
> 
>  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /dabs lemme kno what yall think!!!! i spent a lot of time choosing all their specialties and stuff so. Yea hit me up w ur #headcanons
> 
> [tumblr](http://00250.tumblr.com)


	5. hey doc? why does my life literally suck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the av club goes through final examinations before launching.

A woman that Sonya’s never seen before pokes and prods at her like a kid at a lump of jello. Unfortunately, kids aren’t known to be the most gentle, though Sonya wishes otherwise. The shock of the Chancellor’s announcement still hasn’t quite faded, and she finds herself going through the motions of her physical examination with her mind entirely elsewhere. 

They were really  _ leaving.  _ Sonya and the others had spent their entire lives preparing for this moment, sure, but it was still hard to wrap her mind around. She wasn’t sad - the AV club had had this discussion several times before - it was hard to feel  _ sad  _ about leaving somewhere you never got a chance to feel a part of. Yes, they’d spent all their time on earth locked away from its horrors, but they were also locked away from its beauty, too. It was less of a goodbye from home and more of a leaving a gas station before continuing on to whatever cosmic motel they were meant to reach.

Even if there wasn’t a lot to be sad about, there was still an awful lot to be afraid of. Space travel was dangerous - hell, just getting off the earth was dangerous - and Sonya doesn’t even want to start worrying about what they’d have to deal with once they actually got to the rip.  _ One step at time,  _ she reminds herself, willing her heart rate to slow before the doctor’s stethoscope could take a listen. 

_ Yeah, as if a faulty heart would stop them from sending you up,  _ she thinks, almost smirking. The doctor’s cold hands continue to examine Sonya as her thoughts wander to her friends. She hopes they’re all alright, and not too freaked out. Not that she’s worried; all of them were pretty much on the same page with the whole leaving earth thing. Well, almost.

She feels bad for Teresa, wonders how she’s coping at the moment. She had become a bit of a black sheep during the club’s talks about leaving the planet. She got quiet. Sonya knew why - everyone knew why. 

About five years ago, WCKD gained two invaluable team members. 

Jorge and Brenda found a spot in everyone’s hearts with no trouble, but the bond between Brenda and Teresa had always been different from the very start. Even as young as they were, it wasn’t long before something else entirely had started to blossom between the two. 

Sonya still remembers the day they came to the group, hand in hand, barely two years after Brenda’s arrival, faces as flushed as if they were out in the scorch. Not a single person took issue with it, and that was that. If anything, it had only brought them all closer together. 

Then, a year later, the AV club were told their true role within the department. The original ten of them, all final candidates for project Back-Up. At first, not everyone had taken it well. It got to some people more than others, and Sonya remembers that year as one with a lot more psychological counselling than any other spent at WCKD. Or, as Harriet liked to call it, the Year of Never-Ending Intensive Psychoanalysis. 

Sonya sighs, truly hoping Teresa was somewhere near okay right then. Though she seemed to know something the others didn’t - slightly worrying, but whatever Teresa was hiding, it must have been for a good reason. She’d always been big on honesty, and Sonya knows she wouldn’t lie to the group without a purpose. 

“Alright, that’s it for the physical,” the doctor says then, clicking her pen closed and securing it on her clipboard with a thin-lipped smile. 

“Oh,” Sonya says, not realizing she had daydreamed through the entirety of every examination. “Okay.”

The woman seemed not to be phased by Sonya’s daziness - she was probably told to expect it, Sonya figures. She speaks, not seeming to care if she is really listening or not. “You can follow me now, next you’ll go through your final psychological evaluation.”

 

 

Minho has always hated psych evaluations, and this one is no different. He likes working: getting through massive dumps of data, finding a link hidden within all the information, and solving all the problems that come with it - not getting his own boring brain picked apart by some middle-aged weirdo in a lab coat. Gravitational waves, space travel, exoplanets - that stuff was interesting, it was  _ fascinating  _ \- but psych evaluations? Not so much. 

You’d think that Minho would have grown at least somewhat fond of WCKD’s apparently sole psychologist, but that was not the case. It was really more of a professional relationship, if you wanted to call it anything. Dr. Trent seemed a bit sad about that, as if he wanted to be  _ friends  _ with him and the others, but Minho had long settled on the fact that Trent would just have to deal with that himself. 

Minho had enough friends, he didn’t need any more. And he especially didn’t need any more that’d he’d just have to leave eventually.

“So, Minho,” Trent says, breaking him out of his silent musings, “big day tomorrow, huh?” 

He decides he’ll indulge this man one last time. “Yeah, if you count leaving the planet forever as big. Personally, I’m more concerned with how I’m gonna manage without the breakfasts here.”

That earns a smile from Trent. Minho has to resist rolling his eyes -  _ too easy.  _ “I’m sure you’ll take to rehydrated eggs just fine.”

Minho nearly gags at the thought of freeze-dried food. “Ha.”

Trent smiles again, then flips open his notebook. Time for business. “The Chancellor’s announcement was quite sudden, wasn’t it?” he asks.

“Kind of,” Minho says, honestly. “We were expecting the verdict, and the result - just not this soon,” he admits. He really hadn’t even considered the possibility of a launch happening this early. It was jarring, and he felt like he should have a thousand thoughts and worries swarming through his head right then, but oddly there was nothing.

Trent notices the crease forming between Minho’s eyebrows. “What else?”

“Oh, well-” he stops, collecting his thoughts. Even if Trent was a bit of a weirdo, Minho would admit that he was good at his job. “-I don’t know. I guess I just thought I would be more scared, or sad, or _ something _ .” 

Trent nods thoughtfully, as if he’d been expecting this. “That’s not unusual. Sometimes the shock of an event can cause a lack in other emotions that would normally constitute a typical reaction,” he says.

“Yeah, sure, but I don’t think I’m having a lack in other emotions.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, I’m kinda pissed.”

He can tell that Trent is trying to hold back a smirk - lord knows how many times Minho had sat in that chair and said the words  _ I’m pissed _ . Trent says, “And why is that, Minho?”

“I mean, I’m not pissed that we have to leave the planet. It’s what we signed up - well, we didn’t  _ actually  _ sign up for it, but that’s besides the point,” Minho says, ignoring for the millionth time just how voluntary his ‘participation’ with WCKD was. “The thing is how the Chancellor gets back, gets guards to take us to this tiny-ass room - oh, mind you, without all that consent bullshit we’ve practiced for literal, actual years - then tell us we’re rushing launch to  _ tomorrow _ ? It all seems a bit off to me,” he finishes, leaning back in his chair.  

The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. The Chancellor rarely spoke directly to the AV club - if to anyone it was the original four. They mostly worked with other scientists and engineers. The Chancellor had always been more of a concept than an actual person, like some omniscient ghost that was always there without  _ really  _ being there. She was probably the one person with the most control over their lives, but she wasn’t even really in them. It was weird, and her sudden presence had made Minho - and the others, undoubtedly - suspicious. 

Trent just nods again, wrist flexing and flourishing madly as he tries to write everything down. “So you don’t think they’re being completely honest with you?”

“No, it’s not that. I don’t think they have anything to lie about, it’s just  _ weird.  _ Like it’s not adding up.” 

“And the others? Do you think they share the same feelings?” Trent asks.

Minho shifts forward in his seat. “Yeah,” he says, “everyone seemed kind of confused, like they sensed something was off, too.” Then, leaning in as if he was sharing a secret, “But here’s the thing - Teresa knew.” He pauses, maybe for effect, maybe just for shits, but Trent raises an eyebrow and Minho continues. “The Chancellor came in and told us how the calculations for the rip were wrong, then Thomas starts on about how they weren’t done preparations, and Teresa out of nowhere just says they’ve been done for three months. I don’t know how she knew and Thomas or Aris or Rachel didn’t, but she never bothered to tell any of us.”

“That’s out of character, for her.”

“That’s what I thought! Teresa and I, we’re close. We’re all close, we’re family, but Teresa and I are really close. She tells me stuff she doesn’t tell anyone else, right? She always up front with the group, always honest. So this just adds to the weirdness of it all.” He’s truly perplexed by it all - WCKD had always been so adamant about being honest and just and all that crap about everything in the past, so why suddenly put up the curtain now? And what the hell was going on with Teresa? It frustrates Minho almost to no end. If only he could talk to the others, to have one of their group gatherings. 

“What are you planning on doing about the situation?” Trent asks. 

Minho passed Space Travel With Others 101, he knows that a lack of trust within the team would only succeed in royally fucking everyone involved. “What we always do, I guess. Hold a gathering, talk it out, and move on,” he says simply. 

Trent looks impressed. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to talk it out on the way to Proxima b.”   
  
  


 

> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 231.10.7, Time 2000**
> 
> **TO: Partners, WCKD**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: Phase Three**
> 
>  
> 
> For those not directly involved with the Astronomical Ventures department, a piece of history has been written today. I’m sure the news of the Union’s verdict has travelled fast, and with it the speculation of the AV department’s next move. It is true - the decision has been made to significantly accelerate the schedule of project Back-Up. The final candidates - now official mission members - have finished their final physical and psychological testing and are currently being held in their pre-launch isolation rooms. They will leave the earth tomorrow morning at 1030. 
> 
> In the midst of this historical event I urge everyone not to lose sight of what our true goal here is. We are saving the human race from extinction, and all of our efforts must be focused on the ten mission members as they make the most difficult journey in history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know! what u thought! smash that kudos button!! type that comment!! tell ur friends!!  
> [tumblr](http://00250.tumblr.com)


	6. prophecy?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the (very early) morning of the launch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> early chapter bc i have class from 5-9 and wont be home to post lol

Thomas wakes up in morning - if you can call it that; the glowing numbers on his watch  read 4:55am - feeling like he hadn’t slept at all. The launch looms over him constantly, even unconscious, like a really annoying teacher that had boundary issues. Thomas had studied space travel for  _ years  _ \- he knows every single risk, every single thing that could go catastrophically wrong for him and his friends in a matter of hours.

He’d tried not to consider every single complication as he fell asleep the night before, but the complexities of rocketry failure followed him into his dreams. Thomas had shot up in a cold sweat more than a few times throughout the night, with no less dread when he finally woke up for good. 

But Thomas knows that their chances of not dying in the first ten minutes of the mission would be much higher if his mind was completely focused on his tasks at the time, so he tries to push his worries away from the forefront of his thoughts. 

Instead, he wonders how his friends are doing. Minho would probably be waking up soon too; he was always the earliest riser of their group. He’s probably pissed. Thomas laughs at that - well, as much as one can laugh at five in the goddamned morning. He figures that everyone else would still be asleep, all alone in the sad little rooms WCKD had given them for pre-launch isolation. 

Thomas had never thought a downgrade from their  _ actual  _ rooms was possible, but there he was. At least their regular rooms didn’t have coded locks attached to ten inch thick steel doors. The more he looks around his room, the more it feels like a prison. 

He pulls the blanket up closer to his chin and settles back into his bed, trying to force himself not to think about how much distrust WCKD suddenly seemed to have in the AV club. The past eighteen hours had a worrying undertone to them, a sour aftertaste that left Thomas wondering if they were really telling the truth about everything. Coupled with the fact that WCKD had gone to great lengths to ensure each of them were involved in the planning of each phase, he couldn’t help but suspect something was up, and he was certain the rest of his friends felt the same way.

Turning on his side, Thomas closes his eyes and wills himself to sleep. He dreams.

 

 

_ He’s standing in what appears to be the middle of a vast plain, some kind of desert wasteland with no civilization in sight. In front of him, in the distance, lies a mountain range. It doesn’t seem like a particularly noteworthy mountain range, just a regular old pile of earth. He walks toward it, feels it in him that that’s what he has to do, the only thing he  _ can  _ do.  _

_ He walks, and walks, and walks. He walks for miles upon miles, until he can no longer tell how far he’s walked. His feet blister and ache - why isn’t he wearing any shoes? His toenails are nearly black - with bruising or dirt Thomas can’t tell, but his better judgement tells him it’s probably both. He looks back up at the mountains, and they are nothing but a speck hovering over the horizon in the distance. _

_ He knows it’s not possible - he’d been walking toward them the entire time, they couldn’t be  _ farther  _ from when he started. He blinks and they fade from his view and his mind. There are no mountains - were there ever any mountains, or was it just Thomas’ mind playing tricks on him?  _

_ He doesn’t care. Each breath he takes feels like sandpaper dragging across the inside of his throat. His tongue is a wad of cotton balls resting limply inside his mouth. The sand - is it really sand? Somehow the grains seem larger, coarser than normal sand. They lodge themselves into each pore, every orifice of Thomas’ being.  _

_ He looks up. The mountains begin at his feet now, stretching up impossibly for miles. Rocks jut out toward him, waiting. The wind blows and it’s hot, suffocating. _

_ Thomas blinks and Newt appears above him. His friend is crouching at the edge of the precipice, studying something Thomas can’t see. He’s frowning, smudging his fingers into the dirt. He starts to shuffle forward, closer to the open air.  _

_ There’s a set of fingers gently weaving their way into Thomas’, and he turns around.  _

_ “Thomas.” It’s Teresa. There are tears in her eyes and she places her other hand on top of their linked ones. “They didn’t-” She starts, but is cut off by a loud, splintering  _ crack.  _ She chokes on her words as her head whips toward the source of the noise, behind Thomas.  _

_ He lets his gaze follow hers, to the pile of rocks and dust now settling at the base of the mountain. Thomas tries to approach it, but with each step he moves farther and farther from the rubble.  _

_ He blinks and Teresa and the mountains are gone again, just desert and sky. He blinks once more and the rubble appears in front of him: fragments of rock, dust, and a body, crumpled underneath. The name escapes Thomas’ lips as an exclamation: “Newt!” _

  
  


Teresa is sitting on her bed, feet hanging, unmoving, off the side when her door clicks open. A quick glance to her wrist tells her it’s 5:49 - eleven minutes before they were supposed to come get her - and her heart stutters. By the time the handle is turning, Teresa is already scolding herself for getting her hopes up, and with good reason, because the person that walks through the door isn’t Brenda. Before disappointment can flood through her, Teresa is overtaken by confusion.

“Aris?” she almost shouts, immediately clapping a hand over her mouth. Aris rolls his eyes, holding a finger to his lips as he gingerly takes off one of his shoes, wedging the toe between the door and the frame. 

“Yeah, hey dingus.”

“That’s  _ commander  _ dingus, to you.” Teresa laughs, quietly this time, brushing her hair from her face with the faux-grace of a debutante. Then, more serious, “Wait, how did you even get in here?”

He rolls his eyes again and lets his head fall to one side. “Hacked the lock system?” The  _ duh  _ on the end is silent, as if he was having to explain basic addition to a high schooler. 

“Oh,” is all she says, slightly annoyed that she hadn’t thought about that herself. The events of the day before had left her in such a haze that she hadn’t even thought to take a  _ look  _ at what kind of system WCKD had used for these doors. “What about cameras?”

“I have my ways.” Aris smiles and does what Teresa can only guess is a terrible attempt at looking mysterious. A beat passes and he huffs and offers, a hint of excitement in his voice, “Okay, fine, about a year ago I made recordings from every single camera in the facility and wrote a code into the security mainframe so I could activate them all at the same-”

“What about the time stamps?”

“Erased them, wrote another code to overlay whatever time it actually was starting from activation for the playback of the recordings.”

“But how did you activate it?”

Aris smiles again, sheepishly. “Waited until the poor intern that works the tech room at this hour went out to pee, then snuck in and activated the code.”

“Holy shit, Jones.” Teresa allows herself a smile - she wasn’t sure if even  _ she  _ could have managed that.

Aris shrugs with a “Yeah.” A couple moments pass in silence and their smiles fade, slowly. 

“Why did you come here?” Teresa asks, almost afraid to hear the answer. As she speaks, she sees the oh-so-familiar enthusiasm she’d come to know Aris for drain out of him, seemingly, and become replaced by hesitant graveness.

He takes a deep breath. “Something is wrong,” he states simply, voice nearly wavering as his eyes shoot to the door then back to Teresa. There’s nothing accusatory in his words but Teresa still feels bile burning in her throat. She’d lied to her friends, and now she wasn’t sure if they even trusted her.

“Aris, I-”

“We’re not mad. Or, I’m not. Mad, that is, at you. I haven’t talked to the others, but I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page when I say that we know this isn’t your fault,” He interrupts, making sure to maintain eye contact throughout his words.

Teresa can feel tears starting to burn behind her eyes. “I know, but I didn’t tell you guys when I found out-”

“That doesn’t matter,” Aris says, shaking his head. “You had your reasons. If Brenda asked you to keep a secret, we can’t - we won’t hold that against you.

He continues without noticing Teresa’s eyes shooting downwards.  _ She never asked me to keep it a secret. _

“What matters is that WCKD has been hiding things from us for months, at the same time they were saying they were telling us the complete truth. Teresa, things aren’t adding up and you know it.”

She looks down at her watch. 5:55. “Aris, I know-”

“You have some of the missing pieces.”  _ And we need you to give them to us,  _ he seems to say silently.

“I’ll-” Teresa starts, hesitating. Brenda’s voice rings in her head, hushed whispers and scribbled notes shoved under the table. It all flies through her head, too much at once. “I’ll tell you everything,” she decides then, almost surprising herself. “I’ll tell you everything. But you have to go, now, before they come,” she almost pleads. She couldn’t imagine what consequences they would give him, now, knowing what she knows.

Aris nods, turning toward the door. He pauses with his hand hovering over the handle, then strides over to Teresa and wraps her in a tight hug. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

She nods into her friend’s shoulder, holding tighter. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are finally starting to get interesting!! lmk what u think yall gimme that sweet sweet Validation,, [tumblr](http://00250.tumblr.com)


	7. goodbye earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> launch !!!!!

By the time Harriet’s breakfast settles in her stomach, it already feels like it’s creeping back up toward her throat. The clock on the console in front of her reads 1027. Sitting to her right is Thomas, looking as equally as close to shitting himself as Harriet feels. The rest of their friends - the rest of the crew - are behind or beside them in their own chairs, in front of their own consoles. Everyone has a job to do, but Harriet’s and Thomas are the most crucial, at least right now.

Kind of comes with being pilots at the time of launch, really. 

She tries to push down her anxieties. She knows that she and her friends were literally made for this task, but she can’t help but often feel like they aren’t  _ ready.  _ She barely feels like a real person, let alone a spaceship pilot. She knows there’s an entire team of engineers on the ground behind them, performing tasks even now, but when she looks at herself and Thomas she sees two kids sitting at the controls. 

But then she looks over at Sonya, who, in that  _ Sonya  _ way that’s so unequivocally angelic, just smiles, simply, and Harriet feels a new spur of determination stir inside of her. If there was anyone on or off the planet that could so easily make Harriet feel like everything was worth the fight, it was Sonya. Her best friend never ceased to enchant and mystify her all at once, whether she was yawning nonstop at breakfast or chattering excitedly about some new math problem. She was soft when Harriet was hard, and positive and bright when Harriet felt at her worst. Even one look could start to cheer up Harriet’s day. 

And when she sees Sonya smile at her in the cockpit of the Shuttle, she knows that she’s going to make it. Or at least, she’s going to fly this damn ship.

She blinks and the console reads 1029. Thomas reaches over and squeezes Harriet’s hand.  _ We can do this,  _ he seems to be saying. She nods and they both turn back to their consoles. 

“Shuttle status?” The Chancellor’s voice sounds cold through the communications system. It shocks the crew - everyone sitting up just a little taller. Harriet is confused for a second until she realizes - it wasn’t even supposed to be the Chancellor doing this part; it was supposed to be Brenda. Considering how the last twenty-four hours had gone, this was probably not a good sign.

There’s a second where everything just stops, and then they remember.  _ Right. This is happening.  _ “Ready to commence takeoff procedures,” Thomas says then, sounding much older than he is.

Harriet takes a deep breath. “All engines are go.”

There’s a pause before the Chancellor speaks again. “Prepare for takeoff,” she says, and Harriet’s chair tilts back. The rest of the launch would be remotely controlled from WCKD, but if anything went wrong it would be on her and Thomas to save the crew.

The countdown begins from thirty seconds. Harriet swallows. In the windows above her she can see the reflections of her friends, chairs arranged in a circle.

“Twenty five.”

She looks at each of them. Sonya, beside her, eyes wide as she stares up at the ceiling. Her gaze catches Harriet’s reflection, and she smiles.

“Twenty two.”

Beside Sonya sits Winston, chewing on his bottom lip as he looks straight ahead.

“Twenty one.”

Minho, drumming his fingers on the armrest, the tiniest of grins on his face. He looks over to Newt, beside him, and they share a silent nod. 

“Eighteen.” 

Then Gally, shifting somewhat uncomfortably in his seat. His shoulders are scrunched up to his ears, and he closes his eyes in what Harriet  _ knows  _ is absolute annoyance. She has to stifle a giggle.

“Fifteen.”

Rachel, taking deep breaths. Aris looks over and smiles, taking one of his own. 

“Thirteen.”

Teresa is next, and if Harriet cranes her head to the right she can see her without the help of the window. She’s staring straight ahead, but she doesn’t seem to be seeing anything. Her lips are parted, just barely, and her eyes blink in this slow, methodical way.

She looks nearly dead, and Harriet’s heart breaks for her (though she’s sure Teresa’s heart is broken enough on it’s own). Thomas must have noticed too, because he leans over to whisper something inaudible to Teresa and takes her hand in his. 

“Ten.”

He turns to Harriet then, offering his other hand. She takes it.

“Nine.”

In the reflection of the window, she sees Aris link fingers with Teresa and Rachel.

“Eight.”

Gally opens his eyes and rolls them immediately. “Alright, alright. We all holding hands now? Are we doing this for real?”

“Seven.”

Harriet smiles, biting back a retort for Gally. She’s pretty sure the comms are still open both ways. 

“Six.”

“Yes!” Sonya says anyway, gripping Harriet’s hand tight.

“Five.” 

Everyone shifts in their seats.

“Four.”

Looking up, Harriet can see the entire group with hands locked together. 

“Three. Main engines start.”

The room begins to shake.

“Two.” 

Everyone holds on a little tighter.

“One. Boost to ignition - and liftoff!”

  
  


Winston breathes a sigh of relief like none other the moment the Shuttle exits orbit. His hands can barely uncurl themselves when he lets go of his friends. He’s lucky - Sonya’s way too nice to say anything and Newt probably feels way too bad to comment either - but his friends were more than likely trying to reestablish blood flow after being released from Winston’s death grip. He’d always hated the launch simulations in training; he was grateful he didn’t actually have to do anything other than just sit there. Unless any of the mechanics crapped out, then he and Sonya would have to scramble to fix it. But realistically, if something fucked up during launch then they would all be dead before anyone could do anything about it.

But hey, nothing fucked up and they weren’t dead! Winston has to take a second before realizing this - he hadn’t even been listening to the commands and status reports during the ascent, he just trusted Thomas and Harriet and the team back on Earth. He’d only realized they were in space when he felt his shoulder straps cutting down into him, or, more accurately, _ himself _ floating up against the straps. 

It’s at the same moment that everyone realizes.

Zero gravity. 

Normally, space missions are prefaced with a field day that takes the crew up in a fighter jet, only to nosedive and experience legitimate zero gravity for the very first time. The EXPD-1 crew were never afforded that opportunity. WCKD had the funds, the jets, the pilots, and the space to do it, but on the day of, the Chancellor gave the field trip the ax - something about keeping them safe. Everyone was crushed, naturally, but none more than Newt and Minho. Their matching scowls would have almost been funny if Winston hadn’t been so let down himself.

But now, it’s the real thing. 

“Guys!” Minho shouts, already out of the maze of seatbelts and straps and floating up toward the ceiling. 

Everyone fumbles to unbuckle themselves except Thomas and Harriet, who busily click away at their consoles, flipping switch after switch, clearly trying very hard to ignore the excitement until they’re done with their duties.

“Phase three of launch successfully completed,” Thomas says a second later, small smile finally appearing on his face.

“Engaging autopilot,” Harriet adds, pressing one final button and then starting in on her restraints.

Teresa speaks up, her voice soft but pleasant. “Closing the comm channels.” She turns back to the group, sliding out of her chair as she joins the floating mass. She smiles for what Winston can only guess must feel like the first time in centuries. The room smiles back.

Thomas speaks again. “Alright guys, we have about three hours until intercept with Vessel, and then-” 

“Thomas. Autopilot. Zero gravity. Fun?” Minho interrupts, backflipping above him. Thomas only laughs, shaking his head and finally unbuckling himself before floating up to the rest of his friends.

Gally starts clapping, sarcasm dripping from his fingers. “Would you look at that, Thomas the slinthead is actually having fun!”

“Shut up, Gally!”

The room devolves into a mess of chatter and laughter, everyone talking over each other.

“Hey Newt, dance with me?” Aris asks, twirling in the air.

A snort. “’Course, Aris.”

“My feet feel weird.”

“Winston, wanna come check on the plants?”

“You bet.”

“’Rese.”

“Min.”

“They even put velcro in the _ drawers _ -”

“-Yeah, you wanna deal with a bunch of pencils stuck in the vents?”

“Oh.”

“Y’know, you would think they’d make the chair a little bit wider considering my shoulders-”

“Guys!” Thomas yells above the voices, grabbing everyone’s attention. The room quiets. “Dr. Paige sent a message. She wants a crew photo.”

Rachel raises an eyebrow. “So she can put it in the _ paper _ ?” A few people giggle.

Thomas rolls his eyes. “Rach, come on. For the  _ institution. _ Morale and stuff.”

“And history,” Newt adds simply. 

“Yeah,” Thomas says as each of them simultaneously remember their actual mission. “Yeah. Come on.” Everyone starts to gather round as best they can as Thomas rifles through a few drawers for a camera. “They really did put velcro on everything,” he mutters to himself, sticking it to a patch on the panel in front of him. He fiddles with the controls, squinting.

“Oh my god, give it here,” Teresa says finally, earning a few laughs as she pushes off a chair to get to Thomas, grabbing the camera. “You can fly a spaceship but you can’t even turn on a camera.”

“It wasn’t  _ on _ ?” Thomas exclaims, incredulous.

“Nope.” Teresa says, sticking the camera back on the velcro strip. “Not even a little bit - alright, we’ve got ten seconds, people.” She makes her way back to her friends, which could collectively be referred to as a dogpile at that moment in time. One that, much to his discomfort, Winston is directly in the middle of, sandwiched between Thomas and Gally and Sonya and Aris all at once. A braid floats up dangerously close to his mouth. They all float as one mass, trying to find a way to stay in the middle of the frame as the camera’s timer blinks faster and faster.

“Wait-” Gally shouts, “-are we all smiling?”

The flash goes off and laughter erupts from everyone but Gally. 

“No way, I wasn’t ready!”

The laughter doesn’t let up one bit. “Too late, dude, it’s already uploading back home,” Thomas says.

“No!” Gally pushes himself up to the console, eyes reading over the screen. “File received?” 

“File received, Gally,” Teresa confirms, buckling herself into Thomas’ chair as she starts typing. “I’m asking them what they think.”

“Y’know, they might ask us to take another one,” Sonya offers.

Gally smiles, small but genuine.“Yeah, that’s-”

“Ha!” Teresa yells, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the following eruption of  giggles. The rest of the crew just looks at her like she’s crazy. “Read it, read it,” she gets out, unclipping herself and floating up to Rachel. Thomas leans in to read the message.

“Ha! Oh my god,” he says, mirroring Teresa’s initial reaction. Everyone waits for him to read it aloud. “Okay, okay. Here it is - ‘A. Paige: Thank you for the photo, this will undoubtedly be an unforgettable piece of history. Will be displayed in the facility immediately. Though I’m a bit concerned about A9. Please advise him to correspond with Dr. Trent if he feels it necessary.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u kno the drill. hit me up w those comments i kno u have thoughts dont keep em to urselves [tumblr](http/00250.tumblr.com)


	8. vessel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew docks onto the Big Bad Bitch ship and gets situated.

> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 223.6.23, Time 0900**
> 
> **TO: Partners, WCKD**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: New Candidate**
> 
>  
> 
> Hello all. Please see the attached file for the general preliminary report on our newest candidate for project Back-Up. 
> 
>  
> 
> **TEXT DOCUMENT 009w435t9**
> 
> Subject A5 (“Newt”) was found by field unit 06 47 miles northwest of WCKD facilities on 223.6.18 at time 1452. Upon unit arrival, A5 was sitting calmly in the basement of an abandoned house, alone, with a blue notebook held in his hands. He did not appear frightened by the unit, and followed their commands willingly. 
> 
> Medical testing revealed a  **positive** test for flare virus, though no typical symptoms have been exhibited. A5 has been declared immune to the effects of the flare virus. A5 however exhibits areas of patchy, bloodied skin, (likely eczema) periodic nose bleeds, easily bruised skin, and a shockingly low platelet count. It is likely that A5 experiences some type of immunodeficiency disorder, though no conclusive diagnosis has been made. A5 will be monitored closely for any arising issues.
> 
> Socially, A5 has remained quite neutral, only exhibiting notable discomfort when his aforementioned notebook is taken away by WCKD personnel. The notebook - filled with elaborate sketches, drawings, and mathematical equations and derivations - has since been scanned and returned to A5. 
> 
> Upon being asked why he’s remained so calm, A5 only replies that his parents “told him to listen to the green men when they came for him”. The green men, of course, referring to the WCKD jumpsuits. How A5 and his parents were aware of WCKD is still unknown. A5 refuses to share any other details of his past with any sort of personnel, though much can be deduced from the content of his notebook. So far, we know that A5 had a mother, a father, and a sister, all of which disappeared around a month ago. We know that A5 used to attend primary school, where he was quickly sent away to study at a more advanced institution, surely to foster the acute intelligence illustrated throughout his notes. 
> 
> Though quiet, A5 will be a fascinating addition to our current roster of Back-Up candidates. It is believed that he will be one of the strongest subjects in terms of intellectual development and compliance, though the real test lies within his ability to adapt and socialize with the other candidates. It is anticipated that A5 will be released and integrated into the candidate routine within the week, once his health reaches an acceptable state. A5 will be placed with subjects A2 and A7 due to their outgoing and friendly nature. 
> 
> Any updates on A5’s medical status will be found in his medical file. To see the full scans of A5’s notebook, see his personal files.

  
  
  


Minho is just finishing off a packet of dehydrated ice cream when Teresa’s voice rings out through the ship. “Okay guys, strap in. Five minutes out from WCKD-1. Receiving signals.” she says, loud and clear. She’s already buckled in in front of her own console. She probably didn’t  _ need  _ to use the intercom - without the first two stages of the rocket attached, their spaceship was actually only one room - but Minho’s pretty sure she just wanted to have a bit of fun, anyway. 

“Killjoy!” Rachel jokes, making her way to her chair.

“Hey,” Teresa chides, not looking up from her screen, typing away. “that’s  _ commander  _ killjoy to you.”

Minho smiles. It’s nice to see Teresa in better spirits, though he knows she’s still hurting under the surface. It would take a while for her to collect the pieces of her heart that shattered when she left Brenda back on Earth. But Minho knows Teresa, and he knows that she’ll push her feelings down in favour of the group. And it seemed that her way of doing that would be by throwing everything into taking on her role of mission commander.

“Everyone in?” Harriet asks, met with varying affirmations. “Alright, coming up on WCKD-1. two minutes until dock.” The massive vessel lies straight ahead of them.

Teresa gives Thomas the go ahead. “You’re clear to initiate dock procedures, A2.”

“Copy that, initiating docking procedures now,” Thomas responds. 

There’s a low cough, and a muttered “autopilot.”

“Gally,” Harriet scolds, barely stopping herself from laughing along with the others.

“Yeah, Gally, it’s an automated procedure, which I  _ programmed,  _ so if you’d kindly shut your fucking mouth-”

“Hey commander, permission to disengage safety harness in order to beat the shit out of-”

“Denied, A9,” Teresa deadpans. Minho can  _ hear  _ the eye roll in her voice. 

“One minute,” Harriet says. 

“Opening port three,” Thomas announces, back to business. Through the window, a hundred metres out, port three opens silently, leaving a gaping hole in the metal monster that is WCKD-1l. Waiting.

Harriet scans the data flying across her screen. “Adjusting for drift. On course for a perfect lock.”

The port grows closer and closer, like a long metal garage extending toward the ship. It approaches, until-

“Contact,” Thomas says, the ship coming to a halt. 

“And…” Harriet drags out the syllable, eyes never leaving her screen. There’s a firm  _ click.  _ “Perfect lock!” 

“Nice work, now let’s pressurize and unload,” Teresa says in her commander’s voice. The group wastes no time getting to work, stepping over the threshold between the two ships with crates of supplies in their arms. There’s much more than they planned for - supply missions to both WCKD-1l and Proxima-b had started a decade prior, but there hadn’t been enough time to send everything.

There’s no ceremonial transfer of command, because there’s no one on the ship to transfer it. Teresa ambles - as much as one can amble while floating in zero gravity - into the ship, finding her way to the main command centre. She knows where she’s going; every one of them had to memorize a map of the WCKD-1 early on in their training. 

A few moments later, as Minho’s checking out a rack of puffy white spacesuits, the intercoms crackle to life and Teresa’s voice rings through the ship. “This is EXPD-1 mission commander Teresa Agnes. I am taking full command of the WCKD-1 spacecraft.”

  
  


> **LOG ENTRY 007395614 | ID B1 ARIS JONES | 231.10.8**
> 
> I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot we were going to have to do these. Teresa is telling us we should all do them. I don’t really know what to write. We’re on the WCKD-1 ship now now. The hard part is over - the launch, the docking - that’s where most could have gone wrong. The next part was easy: bringing everything from the other ship on board, then Thomas and Harriet took care of the outer compartments (the ones we can walk around in, not the middle region with all the mechanics) with the WCKD-1’s centrifuge technology. It’s actually a really outdated technique, but it still works like a charm. Now we can walk around in the ship with artificial gravity! 
> 
> It’s kind of weird to think that this is where we’ll be living for the next two years. After a decade of being confined to the WCKD facilities, we’re finally out. I’d say it’ll be weird getting used to living on WCKD-1, but we’ll be asleep for most of the trip anyway, and then it’s right back onto the shuttle - I guess it’s the lander now that the first two stages are burning up in the atmosphere - and down onto the surface.
> 
> Okay, let me back up - asleep is putting it a bit lightly - we’ll be in hypersleep, or suspended animation, if you want to get technical. I’m not entirely sure how it works - it was mostly Rachel and Winston who worked with the senior scientists, biology being their thing and all - but we essentially get in these weird pod-type things and sleep for whatever amount of time we set it for. 
> 
> Right now we’re mostly just getting things set up to be run automatically on the ship - autopilot controls, plant chambers, automated communications with Earth. Since Teresa and I are system operations and computer science, we get to check, doublecheck, and triplecheck all the code that runs these processes. I’m considering throwing myself out the airlock instead, but we’ll see. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u kno the drill folks let me kno what u think i know angie isnt the only person that reads this fic


	9. god i wish that were me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew gets ready to go into hypersleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just,,,,,,,,,, imagine the sleep pod things from interstellar. i Tried yall

Winston finishes adjusting the alarm on the last sleep pod just as Teresa strolls into the room.

“Just about ready?” she asks.

Winston nods. “Yep. The wake-up is set for two years, four months, one week, and three days from now. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be a day out from the rip.”

“The rip,” Teresa repeats, shaking her head. “Crazy to think we’ll actually get to see it for real.”

Winston nods again, letting out a long exhale. “Yeah,” is all he can say. It  _ is  _ crazy - the crew had spent years studying the theory of it, like some science fiction anomaly they could never quite believe actually existed. Sure, the department had sent probes through it years ago - even before the crew had been taken into WCKD - but it was still insane to think that  _ they’d  _ be going through it in a matter of years. 

“Alright, well I’ll send a mission status update back to WCKD and call the others in,” Teresa says then, breaking Winston out of his thoughts. “What’d you set the wake-up for again?”

“Sounds good - oh, and it was two years, four months, one week, three days,” he replies, not looking at the pods and then smirking silently to himself as he checks back, confirming his brilliance.

“Thank you,” Teresa says, fingers beginning to type away as he lets his mind wander.

He wonders what will happen to the Earth when they’re asleep. What would WCKD be doing? There’s only so much the AV department could do while their crew was in hypersleep. Maybe they’d use the time to collect some of the space junk that was just sitting up in orbit, useless. There had been a big initiative back in the 2150’s to get rid of the absolute  _ plethora  _ of space junk still leftover from the very beginning of space-based satellites, but now there were bigger problems. The junk from almost one hundred years ago had largely been in the form of very small satellites, miscellaneous garbage no one used anymore.

When the flares happened, they’d scorched not only the earth but everything in orbit around it. Winston shudders at the thought of it. He was too young to remember the flares happening themselves, but he remembers the day he’d gone through WCKD’s archives of articles pertaining to the immediate aftermath much too clearly. 

One of the scariest things, from a science perspective at least, was the loss of the Solar Dynamics Observatory III. SDO3 had been the NAAU project that monitored the activity of the sun - the same one that had detected the first flares. But once the flares actually hit, everything on board had fried. The world had no way to prepare for the second wave. 

Nearly every communications satellite had been lost as well, just about completely stopping any information from being sent out or received across the world. 

But the one orbital casualty that haunted Winston the most was the International Space Station. It had been a triumph of science and peace in a time where nations still fought to kill one another, a collaboration in discovery and ambition. There had been a crew of six astronauts living in orbit on the Space Station when the flares hit. One day prior to the catastrophe, the four big space agencies had decided to abandon all experiments on board and have the crew evacuate and return to Earth.

They weren’t fast enough. As far as mission control (located in what was then known as Houston) knew, the crew were just loading into the return vessels when the flares reached Earth.

Everything is still up there, preserved in its destroyed glory, travelling around and around and around the Earth endlessly. A chill goes through Winston’s spine - if he got up and looked through the  windows, would he be able to see the remains of the Station? He could feel his rehydrated eggs starting to make their way back up his throat.

Pushing that thought away, Winston tries to focus on the plan his friends had begun to formulate years ago, with the potential to clean the scorched space junk from orbit. Harriet, Sonya, and Gally had taken special interest in the project. They’d never really gotten a chance to make a real project out of it - the real reason was clear to Winston now, though he remembered Sonya’s disappointment when she regaled the senior staff’s immediate dismissal of her ideas at age eleven. The department was probably thrilled at her innovation - especially at such a young age, it was exactly what they had been looking for in a potential candidate - but had to let her down hard in interest of focusing on the mission, unbeknownst to the AV club kids at the time. 

Winston wonders if they perhaps let her down a bit  _ too  _ hard, if squashing down her ideas and imagination that early had shot her drive in the knees before it even learned how to walk properly. 

“Paige just gave us the green light on proceeding with hypersleep,” Teresa says, shaking Winston from his thoughts for the second time in ten minutes. She lets out a long sigh, and Winston gives her a smile that he hopes doesn’t look too sad. He knows exactly why she sounded so shaken up. Hell, she’d probably just written to Brenda for the last time for two years just seconds before. 

“She’ll be waiting for you when we wake up, you know that, Teresa,” Winston says, hoping the statement, true or not, offers at least a little bit of comfort to his friend.

She nods, wiping the corners of her eyes. “I know that,” she says, nodding again as if trying to make herself believe the words. “I’ll call the others down,” she says after a moment, clearing her throat. Back to business. A second later, her voice rings out over the intercom system. “Okay guys, time to bed down for the long nap. We have the green light from Paige. Everyone report to main control room.”

Thomas walks in then, holding his hand out for Winston to high five. “I cannot wait for this,” he says, sitting down cross legged on the floor beside Winston, “We  _ so  _ deserve a nap.”

“Yeah, two years long enough for ya’?” Teresa asks, smiling as she turns around in her chair. 

“ _ Hell  _ no,” Thomas says, exasperated. “After all we’ve done for humanity, we deserve at least ten years of undisturbed sleep.”

“Someone say sleep?” Minho is leaning against the doorframe, a grin plastered on his face. He stays like that for a moment - whether he was giving the room time to get through their collective eyerolls or listening to the cheesy fake sitcom cheering in his head, Winston has no idea. 

Teresa raises an eyebrow. “Why are you all so excited to go into hibernation? Do none of you recall that time back in the 2040’s when the wake-up technology failed and that guy just never woke up?”

“Hey, we fixed that bug,”  Winston defends, scoffing. 

“Whatever. You guys are weird. Why’re you all sitting on the floor?”

“Read us a story, Miss Commander?”

“Oh, shut it, Minho.”

Thomas chimes in. “ _ Pweeaase? _ ”

“Okay, once upon a time the sun fucked up the Earth so bad that everyone died and the scientists had to kidnap a bunch of kids and turn them into supergeniuses so they could go to space and save the species. But the scientists never taught the kids to shut up so they annoyed their leader so much that she had to throw them out the airlock. The end.” 

Sonya, Harriet, Rachel, and Aris stand frozen in the doorway. 

It’s Rachel who speaks first. “Wow, Teresa, got the space crazies already?”

“No, I’m telling bedtime stories. Come sit with us,” Teresa says, smiling as she gestures widely at the space on the floor in front of her. “Ah! Gally! Newt! You’re just in time for our bedtime stories!”

Gally stops (Newt nearly bumping into him) and looks at Rachel. “Space crazies?”

“Yep.”

Teresa rolls her eyes, but smiles anyway. Winston can tell that it’s one of those moments - the ones where she feels like her heart is going to explode. They all had those moments from time to time; sometimes it was just the simplest things that gave an overwhelming sense of  _ family. _ “You guys are too much,” she says, swivelling her chair back toward the console. “I’m putting the main systems in low power mode. Everyone ready for the big nap?” Teresa’s question is met with various affirmations, ranging from questionable (Gally) to excited (Thomas and Minho). 

As the ship’s lights dim to half-power, Gally is the first one to speak out. “So, how do we - uh, how does it… work?” 

“Someone a little nervous?” Newt questions, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“No,” Gally denies immediately, crossing his arms. “I’m just - I’m a _ scientist, _ I’d like to know the details of the procedure we’ll be going-”

“You’re totally scared shitless, aren’t you!”

“No, I’m just-”

“Oh, come on, guys,” Sonya yells - well, as much as someone as tiny as Sonya can  _ yell.  _ The group quiets down. “Can we just admit that we’re all a little scared?” She grabs Gally’s hand and looks up at him. “But we’re gonna get through this just like we’ve gotten through everything else -  _ together _ .” She pauses, and turns back to the group. “Right, guys?”

Winston’s pretty sure he sees the entire room’s hearts melt collectively at that, his included. “Come on, group hug time,” he says, pulling Thomas up with him as he stands.

“Yes,” Thomas agrees, holding his arms out wide. In a few seconds, everyone is dragging themselves up from the floor and wrapping their arms all together in a tangled clump of bodies in the middle of the room. 

After a good two minutes, the crew separates and Winston is the first to speak. “Okay, everyone pick a pod.” There’s a brief moment of bickering between Minho and Gally (“No, I want that one” “Well, I saw it first!”) but before long everyone is settled on their own pod. Winston continues. “Okay, now you can all open them up with the green-”

“Hey, Win, y’know we’ve all done sims for these before, right?” 

“Did you engineer the technology, Rachel?”

“ _ No _ , but-”

“Oh, no? Then shut up. As I was saying, press the green button to open your pod. Get in, press the red button to lock yourself into two years, four months, one week, and three days. Got it?” Everyone mumbled some kind of affirmation, and soon enough all the green buttons were pressed and the crew all sitting in their pods, waist deep in lukewarm water. 

“We’re all gonna be raisins,” Minho announces, looking at the interior of his pod with short-lived distaste. After about ten seconds of everybody just sitting there, Minho gives an exasperated sigh. “What are you guys, a bunch of sissies?” He looks around, waiting. “Fine. If I don’t see you guys on the other side, remember that I love you,” he says mockingly, smashing his red button. His body lowers, covered by a thin sheet of plastic material, and then the pod closes, just like that. The timer on the outside of his pod begins to count down. 

Gally is next. “Later, guys!”

Harriet. “See you guys in two years.”

“Here’s to hoping Thomas has outgrown those bloody night terrors.”

“Hey, let’s hope  _ you  _ have, Newt!”

“Goodbye, losers.” Rachel.

“Sweet dreams!” Sonya.

Aris. “Night!”

After three minutes, only Thomas, Winston, and Teresa remain. 

“You guys go first,” Thomas says then, sitting on the edge of his pod, feet dangling in the water.

“Trying to avoid those night terrors?” Teresa is smirking, arms crossed. Her pod was open, but she hadn’t yet gone in, just standing beside it.

Thomas rolls his eyes, but there’s no annoyance in the act. He’s silent for a moment. “Just wanna make sure everyone makes it in okay,” he says quietly. 

“Well, that’s actually my job this time,” Winston says, putting a hand on Thomas’ shoulder. “You guys have to go before me.”

“Actually,” Teresa chimes in, matter-of-factly, “since I’m commander  _ I’m  _ gonna go last. And that’s an order.” She says the last part with a self-satisfied smugness.

Thomas and Winston groan simultaneously; the commander bit was already growing stale. Thomas slowly slides down into his pod, shuddering as he submerges his lower half. “Fine. Goodnight. Don’t loiter too long, okay guys?” Winston and Teresa both whine an  _ okay  _ and then Thomas is gone, hidden in his pod, timer counting down.

Winston turns to Teresa then, a glint of concern in his eyes. He hopes she doesn’t stay up too long after he goes down. On her own, she gets very pensive very quickly. And not in a good way. “Okay, if you have any problems after I go down, just press my red button again and I’ll come back up, okay?” he says, sliding into his pod.

“Winston. Don’t worry, okay? Now get the rest you deserve,” Teresa assured him, smiling softly.

“Okay. Goodnight. Love you.”

“Love you too, Win. G’night.” 

And with that, Winston is reclined in his pod, the sheet of plastic starting to come up over him. Seconds away from sleep, he sees Teresa turn away from the row of pods in a flourish of dark hair. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u alr kno babes


	10. stargirl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew wakes up (two years four months one week three days later).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note i do NOT condone the dislike of mint chocolate chip ice cream. the opinions expressed in this chapter are not that of the author's. fuck u angie mint choc is the besT

Gally wakes up coughing. He’s pretty sure there’s some sort of fluid in his lungs, but he’s also pretty sure he’s not going to die - at least, not by drowning in space. Everything else in space has a much higher chance of killing him than a fit of coughing.

Over the sound of his own choking, Gally can hear a snickering voice. “Want some water?”

“Oh, shut it, Minho,” he replies without missing a beat, prying his eyes open. Minho is sitting in front of Gally’s own pod, chin resting in his hands with that dumb shitty grin Gally had long since grown accustomed to. He blinks hard, wiping at his eyes.

“Yeah, that takes a few minutes. You’ll be fine,” Minho says, checking the watch on his wrist. “How long do you think ‘till the others are up?”

And as if on cue, another pod slides open to reveal a disgruntled looking Harriet.

“Well, that was a quick two years,” she says, looking down at her pod with mild disgust. She pushes herself up only to have her arms waver and collapse. “God, maybe not.”

Minho laughs, standing up and holding a hand out to her. “Gotta love hypersleep space atrophy.”

“Of course,” Harriet says, steadying herself. She turns to Gally. “How about you, taking a bath or something?”

“I’m taking my time,” He says, a tad indignantly. He hadn’t even considered that his muscles would be weak from two years of hibernation. A quick look at Minho’s smug face tells Gally he would be getting out of his own pod all by himself. He narrows his eyes as if to say  _ challenge accepted.  _  He pulls his legs up to his chest - knees scraping along the front edge of the opening - and grabs on to the sides of the pod. With a grunt, he hoists himself upwards, legs slowly and shakily unfolding underneath him until he’s standing up in full.

“There you go!” Harriet cheers, smiling. “Wasn’t sure you were gonna make it for a second there.”

“Pfft.” He steps out of his pod, stretching his arms up high. His muscles  _ scream _ in protest. “God, I need to take a walk,” he says, turning to Minho and Harriet. “You guys want any food?” 

“Yes,” Harriet replies immediately, “I’ll come with you,” she says, stepping out of her plasticy hypersleep suit, already unzipped.  _ Right,  _ Gally thinks to himself, wondering why he’s still wearing his own. Glorified plastic wrap, that’s what it was. He folds (crumples) his own suit somewhat neatly and stores it in the designated space in his pod.

“Shall we?” he says, smiling at Harriet. She smiles back.

“Get me some ice cream!” Minho calls after the two as the exit the control room, heading toward the kitchen. 

Harriet scoffs. “Healthy.”

“Yeah, you’d think he’d eat a little better considering he’s the EVA specialist and all. That shit’s demanding.”

“I know, I’m the other one!”

“Oh. Yeah.” Gally can’t believe he’d forgotten Harriet’s secondary position. Not that they’d had to actually do any EVAs - extra-vehicular activities - since launch, anyway. But if there was a need for it, like something wrong with the outside of the ship or a cargo delivery (that wouldn’t be happening on their mission, but it had been the norm for the space travel of the 21st century) it would be Harriet and Minho going outside the ship to deal with it. She literally had the two scariest, most demanding jobs of anyone on the ship. 

“Y’know, you’re kind of a badass,” Gally says then, breaking their momentary silence. 

Harriet looks at him, surprised. “And why is that?”

No words find their way to Gally’s tongue. He hadn’t thought that far ahead, apparently. After a few seconds Harriet raises an eyebrow, waiting. He exhales. “You literally have the two scariest, most demanding jobs of anyone on the ship. You’re piloting us through space -  _ space _ , every aspect of which is trying to kill us - and then if something’s wrong you go  _ out in space  _ and fix it. You’re kind of the most important person on this whole mission, Harriet.”

They’re stopped, standing awkwardly in the doorway of the kitchen. There’s not quite enough room for the two of them there, but neither moves. Harriet takes a few seconds to close her jaw after it drops. “Wow,” is all she can make out, barely an exhalation. She blinks about a million times in one second (which Gally isn’t even sure is possible) then suddenly moves to sprint-walk over to the cupboard, opening it sharply. 

“That’s pretty humble coming from  _ you _ , Mr. Important Engineer,” she says finally, sending a smug look over her shoulder.

Gally rolls his eyes, smiling. There was a tension in his shoulders he hadn’t even noticed that was starting to dissolve already. “Hey, I never said I wasn’t important. I am  _ very  _ important.”

“Mmhmm,” Harriet hums, turning back to the cupboard and grabbing some food packets at random.

Gally reaches above her, taking a few bottles of water. “Kind of sucks we still have to eat rehydrated dehydrated food for the rest of our lives.”

“Not the rest of our lives. We’ll eventually be able to farm on Proxima b - hey, what flavour of ice cream should we get Minho?”

“Well, he hates mint, so-”

Harriet smiles. “Mint it is.”

 

By the time Gally and Harriet are back with the food, everyone except Teresa is up and out of their pods. Minho can’t help but feel a twinge of worry go through him. It wouldn’t have been unlike her to stay up later after everyone else had gone down, overworking herself. 

Newt sits down beside him, apparently having acquired mind-reading powers during his hypersleep. Minho isn’t surprised. “Think she stayed up long?”

Minho lets out a long sigh. “Yeah,” he says, drumming his fingers on his shin. 

“I can’t imagine how she must be feeling right now,” Newt mumbles, to himself or not Minho can’t tell. “She’s strong. I couldn’t - I couldn’t do it,” he decides, looking to Minho. His eyes are about as sad as Minho’s ever seen them. 

Minho softens, shoulders falling. “I don’t think I could either,” he says honestly. “But I think if anyone could, it’s her. That’s why they picked her as commander - everyone can see it, I think. How strong she is.”

Newt nods, humming in agreeance. He looks down suddenly, squinting at his watch. “God, when did the - you were first down, right? ‘Bout when did you go?”

“Just after eight, I think? What time’s it now?”

Newt frowns. “Almost twenty after.” He twists around, leaning back on a pod. “Hey, Win, ‘bout when do-”

“Harriet!” Thomas interrupts, halting every conversation in the room. His eyes widen a bit. “Oh, uh, sorry. That was loud.”

“Yeah?”

He leans in the doorway, fingers tapping furiously. “Do you wanna - uh, could you come here for a sec?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Minho sees Newt’s eyebrows scrunch together. He almost snorts. Thomas had never been good at concealing anything. Or patience, or subtlety. 

“Everything alright?”

Thomas blinks. “Yeah,” he says, a beat too late. Newt narrows his eyes, which Thomas pointedly ignores. “Harriet?” he says instead.

The room waits expectantly. “Yeah, yeah,” she says after a second, getting up.

The two of them leave without another word. The remaining seven glance around uneasily. 

“Well that’s sketchy,” Minho says, leaning back onto his elbows, as if suntanning. Newt rolls his eyes.

“So yeah, Winston, what I was gonna say was-”

Newt doesn’t even have time to finish his sentence before the last pod raises from the ground, panels sliding open with a hiss.  _ Teresa.  _ The room holds its collective breath. 

She sits up with a sharp gasp, eyes wide open. Nobody moves. She blinks hard, hands gripping the edge of her pod. Her knuckles are bone white.

Something is wrong. Minho knows it.

“Teresa!” It’s Aris that speaks first, relieved. 

She smiles. “Hey, guys.”

Exhale.

Winston gets right into it. “I told you not to stay up too late after I went down!”

Teresa can barely roll her eyes. “Thanks for the warm welcome, guys,” she deadpans, lifting herself up to sit on the edge of the pod with no problem whatsoever. “Really missed you too.”

“Come on, we were just worried,” Sonya says, putting her hand on Teresa’s. “We’ve been up for almost twenty minutes now.”

Teresa blinks. “Oh, shit. I didn’t realize I stayed up that long. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, we’re just glad you’re back.” 

Teresa smiles then, lips just barely ghosting upwards. Minho offers her his ice cream - mint chocolate, fuckin’ gross, anyway - and she takes it tentatively, nostrils almost flaring in distaste before she evidently decides she doesn’t care. He watches carefully, trying to find some sort of window into what was going on in her mind. His leg muscles start to twitch, but he ignores them. Her lips are pressing on the spoon like it’s a thousand dollar bill, and her eyes look massive, faraway. Somehow, impossibly, the bags under her eyes seem to have gotten deeper, darker, even after nearly two and a half years of sleep.

He speaks lowly, so that just she can hear it. “You planning on telling me what’s going on anytime soon?”

Her eyes snap to him.  _ Caught.  _ “There’s nothing - I don’t know.” Minho sits up, and gives her a look. She sighs. “Fine,” she says, closing her eyes. “Fine. Just… just give me a minute, okay?”

Minho nods and sits back again, leaning onto his elbows. They sit in silence, Teresa taking miniscule bites of her runny ice cream and Minho considering what lay in the realm of possibilities of what Teresa was gearing herself up to tell him. He could only assume it had something to do with Brenda, but there was also something deep down telling him that whatever this was went further than that. 

A part of him doesn’t even  _ want  _ to know, really - if it was affecting Teresa this much, then it would definitely be something that concerned the whole crew. And it was most definitely bad. But Minho knows that it would be stupid to just ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist. And it would be even worse if he were to do that while knowing he left Teresa to deal with it alone. He’ll admit he’s maybe a bit selfish at times, but when it comes to his friends - especially Teresa - Minho will always put his own interests last. Whatever it was that was bothering Teresa was going to have to deal with Minho first.

A few minutes must have passed, because by the time Minho is finished daydreaming Teresa is slipping out of her pod and sitting cross legged in front of Minho. 

Her face is grave, voice barely above a whisper - no, it’s more like an exhale, each word deflating her bit by bit. “Before I went down, when everyone else was asleep, I talked to Brenda.” She pauses, eyes slowly scanning the room. “She told me something.” If Minho hadn’t known the girl in front of him for the better part of his life, he would’ve sworn he was staring into the face of Death itself. The four words carry so much weight - and he knows immediately that it has to be so much worse than he imagined.

He widens his eyes, waiting. She closes hers, pressing her lips together hard. “She told me-”

“Teresa!”

Minho could have strangled Thomas at that moment, right then. He turns around to give a glare, but stops. Thomas has the same stricken, pale expression as Teresa, and he’s bouncing on his toes, which is never a good sign.

“The comms are down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i originally had this chapter longer, with an extra part where you find out what brenda tells teresa but?? its so much more fun to keep yall hanging TBH


	11. we gettin Sad up in this spaceship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> emotions happen as they wait for the rip.

It’s dark in the command room when Thomas enters, the only light being the hundreds of little buttons decorating the console, glowing a pale blue and reflecting up onto the windows.

“Hey,” he says quietly, half-guessing he’s not alone. The front-most chair jolts slightly, Teresa’s face peeking out from behind a curtain of dark hair.

“Hey,” she says, one foot reaching down to the floor gingerly. “What are you doing up?” she asks, pivoting the chair to face Thomas. He takes a seat beside her.

“I could ask you the same question,” he replies, knowing what her answer would be already. She just gives him a small, bitter smile. Thomas sighs softly. “Wanna talk about it?”

She has her legs curled up against her chest, arms hugging tight. There’s a long moment of silence. “No.” Thomas only nods. His eyes wander over the consoles, studying each button. It’s a game he used to play back at WCKD, whenever he was doing simulations. If he could list off every button’s function and protocol in a minute, he would win. In the year before the launch, he’d gotten his time down to forty-seven seconds for the entire front panel.

Just as he’s is getting to the the centrifugal jet controls for the third time, Teresa speaks again. Her voice is soft, distant. “Y’know those pictures they always used to show us, of what the world used to be before the flares?”

Thomas remembers - beautiful mountain landscapes, lush fields that stretched for miles - all extinct phenomena now, visions of an unattainable past. “Yeah?” he says, nodding slightly.

“I don’t know what they were trying to do.” She shakes her head, staring out the window. “I don’t think any of us feel any more obligation to survive because of it.”

She looks distant, faraway. It’s fitting, Thomas thinks. Nothing could be farther away from anything than the ten of them were right then - far from earth, moving away each second. Detached completely from the past Teresa spoke of, and removed altogether from humanity, even though soon enough they would _be_ the rest of humanity. They’re both quiet for a few moments before Thomas says, “Yeah,” again, quieter.

A couple more minutes pass by and Teresa frowns, looking at Thomas for the first time since their conversation started. She opens her mouth, words nearly falling off the edge of her tongue before she shuts her lips together again.

“What is it?” Thomas asks. He can tell there’s something she wants - needs - to say.

Teresa blinks fast, as if stumbling out of a dream. She fumbles with her words for a few seconds, stuttering incoherently before finally settling on “I don’t know.” She presses her lips together as her eyes fill up with tears.

Thomas is almost sure he’d never seen Teresa - or any other person, for that matter - change emotions that quickly. She’d gone from near-emotionless, far-off, to barely being able to hold back her tears, eyes wide and scared as if something inside of her snapped, triggering an onslaught of sadness and fear. He reaches for her hand, confusion and fear starting to bubble up inside of _him_ as he tries to catch her gaze again.

“Hey, hey. Teresa?” he says, his voice softening. Her line of sight aligned directly with his but Thomas could tell she wasn’t really seeing him. “Teresa?”

“They put the weight of the entire human race sitting on our shoulders,” she states. Her voice shocks Thomas: quiet and utterly level, despite the tears now falling freely.

“Teresa, I-”

“But they made us so detached from it that we can’t even find it in ourselves to really care.” She blinks again, pupils widening ever so slightly as she focuses on Thomas’ face. “Do you care?” she asks, almost desperate, voice faltering on the last word.

Thomas squeezes her hand, not knowing how to even begin to answer. He knows that if he cares about anything, it’s his friends. He cares deeply and  fiercely about them if nothing else. His gaze falls past Teresa and onto the Earth, a spinning blue dot, pale, in the distance. He knows the sight should feel like a severed limb, like something ripped away, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like anything.

His answer comes in the form of a whisper: “No.”

 

 

 

> **CORRESPONDENCE LOG | 234.2.18**
> 
> [2334] WCKD-1: Commander A1 reporting from vessel WCKD-1, WCKD do you read?
> 
> [2335] WCKD-1: WCKD, do you read?
> 
> [2347] WCKD-1: Commander A1 reporting from vessel WCKD-1, do you read?
> 
> [2347] WCKD-1: are you really telling me that we’re not only emotionally and physically severed from the planet earth but also our one remaining link is now broken too
> 
> [2347] WCKD-1: I’m going to fix this thing, mark my words.

 

 

By the time Newt wakes up, most of the group is already milling about the ship. Everyone is listless - only a week from the rip, Newt can see everyone’s anxieties starting to manifest in the absolute weirdest of ways. Winston, who _despises_ running, was up on one of the treadmills right beside Minho. Sonya wouldn’t stop pacing, and Harriet, of all things, was knitting. Newt didn’t even know they had knitting supplies on the ship. Even Gally was acting strangely, engrossed completely by Rachel’s zinnia, which had flowered while everyone was in hypersleep.

The only person who seems to be lacking in nervous energy is Teresa. Newt almost finds himself wandering over to ask her how she’s doing and just what in the bloody hell is going on with her - in nicer words, probably. But each time he tries, Thomas somehow appears with his bullshit puppydog eyes and a foreboding look that makes Newt step back without fail. He gets that Thomas probably just wants to make sure she has space, which is understandable, but the girl could probably use someone to talk to, too.

“What’s gotten into her?” Newt asks Thomas later that morning, voice lowered. They sit in the main control area, panoramic windows spanning out in front of them with a landscape of absolutely nothing.

Thomas glances over to Teresa, who’s fiddling with some circuitry in the corner. “Yeah,” Thomas says, sighing as he turns back to Newt. “I think she’s just pretty shook up about the comms.”

Newt nods. He figured that was most of it. They’d all been shocked about their last link to earth being gone, just like that. But obviously, Teresa had a bit more to be upset about. “I’m sure Brenda’s not too bloody pleased, either.”

Thomas allows himself an exhale of a laugh. “Yeah, no. The entirety of WCKD’s probably freaking out about it.”

Newt chews his lip. Thomas was right, WCKD was probably pissed. But what if they weren’t? The group had no idea how long their comms weren’t running - for all they knew, the connection could have died the minute they went into hypersleep. Newt knew it probably wasn’t the case, but he couldn’t help but think that WCKD could have given up on them long ago, by now. Completely alone. “Well, if anyone can fix it, it’s Teresa,” He says, genuine.

Thomas nods. “I know,” he says, glancing over at her again, still entranced in her work. “but I’m not sure if it _can_ be fixed, you know? What if it’s not a problem on our end, but Earth’s?”

Newt nearly shivers at that thought. It’s been almost three years since the launch. Pretty much anything could have happened to the Earth in that time. Although, Newt can’t imagine anything worse than the catastrophe of the solar flares - except for zombies taking over the planet, maybe, but he knows that was just a lame science fiction trend from a few centuries ago. But still, the possibilities were endless: riots overtaking WCKD and other government projects, natural disasters, another wave of solar flares roasting all satellites.

Newt looks back at Teresa. Though he can’t see her face from where he’s sitting, he knows exactly what it looks like - eyebrows drawn together in concentration, her nose twitching occasionally with frustration. But there’s a small hint of franticity in her movements, giving away everything. She sets the circuit board on the desk not so gently, balling her hands into fists. “I hope it’s a problem here and not there, for her sake,” Newt offers, lowering his voice again.

Thomas gives a weak smile as if to say that he hopes so too.

Newt gets up then, sudden onset of queasiness hitting him like a bag of bricks. He feels claustrophobic - not physically, but in the way that there’s too much _stuff_ happening, too much worry and uncertainty and anxiety surrounding him from every side. It creeps up his throat, suffocating. It’d been awhile since the last time this happened, but it’s no less awful. _Great bloody timing_.

“Newt?”

“Yeah, yeah,” He says automatically, waving Thomas off. “Stop ya’ goddamned worryin’. I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Thomas sounds skeptical, to say the least.

Newt has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Bloody fine,” he lies, starting toward the main rec area of the ship. He’s always hated being like this, especially in front of other people. These kinds of feelings - the tightness in his chest, the churning of his stomach - always came on way too fast, way too unexpectedly. Dr. Trent’s voice chimed in his mind. _Panic attack._

“Gonna go walk around,” he mutters, not really caring if the answer satisfies Thomas or not. He just needs to _go._

“O-okay.”

He makes his way into the rec area, quickly taking in his surroundings and judging how much he wants to be there. He quickly decides that is exactly zero percent, and starts his way toward a quieter, more private area - the bunkers. Hell, Newt would have been happy getting some fresh air _outside_ rather than have any more walls closing in on him. But before he can get any further, Minho catches his eye.

It takes less than a second for him to read the look on Newt’s face and know that something is up. Newt freezes, and within a second Minho looks over to Winston, says something with a laugh, then looks back to Newt as Winston grabs his water bottle and hops off the treadmill.

After all these years, Newt still finds it fascinating how he and Minho can say nothing at all but at the same time so much, with just one look. Newt nods and gets on the treadmill, breathing a _thanks_ as he starts to run.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm


	12. but i'm not that old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rachel contemplates, teresa works, and sonya worries.

> **LOG ENTRY 000917482| ID B2 RACHEL | 234.2.22**
> 
> We’ve all been woken up for a few days. It’s really weird, it feels like we never went down at all. We’re four days out from the rip. Thomas says he thinks he can see it out there, like a bubble in the... in the nothing. He’s probably just excited. I think he’s seen that old movie too many times. Let’s just hope Matt Damon isn’t waiting to kill us on Proxima b.
> 
> Communications are severed. We can’t reach Earth, and they can’t reach us. I don’t even know if this entry is going to be sent out. It’ll be archived, but will anyone else ever read it? I always kind of thought our travels would be recorded - these log entries, ship data, correspondences - but now everything is different. What if we don’t survive? What if we _do_? Will anyone even know? Teresa says she’s going to fix it, but I’m not sure if she can. If anyone could, it would be her.
> 
> God, I sound like a fucking prick. Are we gonna make it? Will anyone ever remember me? I hate it. So whiny. But hey, I guess it is kind of important. Whatever. My plants are still alive, amazingly. I knew the growth chamber would work. By the way, if anyone is reading this at any point in time, it was me, Rachel Bandi, that engineered that growth chamber. The one that grew plants, in space. With no human upkeep for two years. Fuck yeah.
> 
> Winston was pretty pumped about them too. He did a few papers on the differences in the soils we used. I think he’s grateful for the distraction. Actually, everyone got pretty excited about the plants - especially the berries. Besides being one of only five crews to accomplish that during flight, I think we all just needed a win. Space is fucking scary.
> 
> I have to go now - Aris wants to use some of our less successful plants to do some chemistry shit. Promised he’d let me turn them blue. One last note - if anyone _does_ end up reading this and they’ve found out how to get everyone out to Proxima b somehow, please send Brenda and Jorge first. We miss them.

  


Teresa is hunched over her console, eyes flying back and forth over the screen. She knows that there’s an answer to the communication error somewhere in the data - there has to be. She’s not quite sure how many days she’s been at it, but she knows she’s starting to push it. The mission is in its lowest maintenance phase - all they really have to do is make sure there are no problems with the ship before they make it to Proxima b - and that was Thomas and Harriet’s job, anyway. But Teresa’s the Commander, and she should be taking care of her crew regardless.

Unfortunately, that voice of reason was just an infinitesimal portion of everything jumbled in her mind. It was like a constant static, screeching at her every minute of everyday: _you need to fix the comms._ If she could just find what was wrong. What _they_ did.

She scans through endless folders of operational code, looking for even the slightest of errors. Her eyes feel as if they’ve been burned open permanently. The others came by every so often, checking up on her, in their different ways: a quick conversation, a packet of freeze-dried ice cream left on top of the console, a head rested on her shoulder for a few silent minutes, or even a pair of braids woven through her hair by gentle hands. The levels of concern vary, but everyone has the same worried smile. Not quite the ‘oh boy I think she might be going crazy’ kind of worried smile, but it was certainly going in that direction. Teresa knew that. She knows that, still, and she does appreciate their caring for her.

But she’s close. She can feel it.

Teresa decides to go back in the systems to when the comms _were_ working, and work her way up from there to see what happened after they went down. She clicks through to the correspondence archives, scrolling through the different files. Her eyes land on a JPG file dated _231.10.8_. Her finger freezes, hovering over the mouse. The file name is just a bunch of numbers. Teresa narrows her eyes, ignoring the burn that comes with any movement of her eyelids. She’s definitely not looking for an image file, but it seems out of place.

She doubleclicks, jolting back slightly as the image fills the screen. It’s bright, completely unlike the dark grey of the file archives she’s been living in the past few days. She has to blink a few times before being able to focus on the screen again. And when she does, a burn comes to her eyes for a different reason entirely.

It’s the crew photo from the Shuttle, the day they launched. Teresa remembers it perfectly. Everyone is all clustered together in one floating pile - their dysfunctional astronaut family. Teresa’s eyes run over everyone’s faces one at a time, taking in the moment entirely. A small smile finds its way onto her lips. She remembers the exact feeling of exhilaration from that day. Everyone’s emotions were running on an absolute high off of the thrill of finally _starting_ the mission they’d prepared their entire lives for. Teresa wipes her cheeks with both hands, leaving them wet. Two entire years had passed since the photo was taken. She peers closer, studying her past self’s face. Had she changed much?

Teresa sits back and squints at the dim glow of her reflection in the ship windows. _She_ thinks she looks about the same. Maybe the bags under her eyes are deeper, more pronounced, but those had been a fixture on her face ever since she’d become an executive member of the AV department. She certainly doesn’t _feel_ two years older. In fact, she doesn’t feel old at all. She’s seventeen, and she feels like an adult and a kid all at the same time.

Teresa sighs deeply, letting her shoulders fall for the first time in three days. Her muscles scream in protest, but she only slides down further in her chair, eyes shut and tingling painfully. She’s tired. Her heart and her head have been screaming at each other, back and forth for days. She knows it’s wrong to hide what she knows from her friends - what Brenda told her just before she went to sleep - but she doesn’t have all the information yet, and she knows that telling them would just create panic for no good reason.

She blinks her eyes open once more, sighing for the hundredth time that night. Staring back at the screen, into the smiling faces of her friends - her _family_ \- Teresa mutters a promise.

“I’m going to fix this for us.”

 

 

> **LOG ENTRY 000917482| ID B4 SONYA | 234.2.24**
> 
> So, here’s the thing. I don’t want to say anything conclusive right now, but I’m pretty sure we have a pretty big problem. We’ve had some time to kill since the wake-up. Everyone is too wired about the rip to really talk to for that long, so we’ve all kinda been doing our own thing. For me, that’s math.
> 
> It’s been bugging me since launch. Everything was so rushed. Teresa said that she’d known about it for three months - she’d explained _that_ whole thing to the group the first night on this ship - they’d been hiding things from us longer than we’d thought. A couple months before Teresa found out about it all, Brenda was made to work longer hours and get more calculations done in a day, basically keeping her away from us. I remember it, we saw a lot less of her. I got to work with her every once in awhile, though, because I _am_ a mechanical engineer, too -  as much as WCKD likes to tell me to focus on my other duties, they can’t keep me from doing my job. So Brenda (and sometimes me) worked overtime on launch calculations. They told us it was practice, simulations for some possible launch scenarios.
> 
> It seemed reasonable enough. I had no complaints, of course, I was doing math and physics on the daily. Literally the best thing ever. But Brenda wasn’t too sure - and even though we know the truth now, I still believe her. Brenda told me she thought they were trying to keep her away from Teresa. It makes perfect sense - WCKD had really never been that thrilled with Brenda and Teresa’s dating, (whether it was because they were girls or because they were _dating_ I’m still not sure) and they probably either got fed up with their adorableness or wanted to start separating them before they were separated literally forever.
> 
> But yeah, we were really calculating our actual launch specifications. Brenda started suspecting it right about the time they pulled me off of that task. A few days later, Chancellor Paige dropped the news to the team, then Brenda told Teresa. Confusing, I know. Is anyone reading this? I know we (mission members) don’t have access to each other’s mission logs, for privacy and all that, but now that comms are gone, is this even getting sent anywhere? It’ll be archived on the ship, but yeah. At least it’s a place to thought dump. If WCKD’s done any good for us, it’s definitely been within their thought-dumping services. Dr. Trent was literally always available if we needed to talk about anything - now that I think about it, it was probably just so we could be mentally healthy enough to complete the mission.
> 
> I almost forgot! The mission! The issue! Okay. When we were doing the mystery calculations, one of my tasks was fuel requirements. And here’s the thing - when accounting for mass in my calculations, I only ever used the value for our projected launch mass, the one _without_ the extra supplies we couldn’t launch ahead of time because of the rushed launch. _Obviously_ I accounted for extra mass, give or take about 400kg (in case we needed a _few_ extra things) - I’m not a shitty engineer - but all the extra stuff we had to take definitely has a combined mass of over 400kg.
> 
> Once we got on board, I checked out the fuel gauge for WCKD-1 - exactly the fuel requirement I calculated back when I didn’t know I what I was really solving for. See, this is bad because that number doesn’t account for all the extra mass, which means it’ll take more fuel for us to get to Proxima B. And it also means that the lander ship used more fuel getting up into orbit, too.
> 
> What I’m getting at here is that I’m pretty sure we don’t have enough fuel to make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /dabs sorry nothing really Happened but. suspense


	13. brown eyes club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thomas chills out before they reach the rip.

Two days drag by with restless anticipation. Thomas is almost certain that two years in hypersleep went by faster. The crew had tried to occupy themselves to the best of their abilities, but there was only so much to do within the confines of the ship. Even Thomas himself found he couldn’t do much of anything with regards to controlling the ship - with everything already set on an automated course, he really couldn’t  _ do  _ anything. He’d even tried to see if Aris was up for some simple chemistry experiments, but he’d been all but on lockdown with Teresa at the command console.

Since the comms had gone down, the two of them had spent almost every waking minute trying to decipher the cause of the problem. That was just the problem, though - they didn’t know why or how the comms had gone down - just that they  _ had.  _ Thomas could feel the frustration radiating off of them, slowly building in intensity with each passing day.

He’s thankful for the lens-like sphere of the rip out in the distance. It looks closer than ever, but somehow still just a bit too far to seem real, yet. It definitely didn’t seem close enough that it was only seven hours away. The ship was moving fast, though - somewhere in the realm of 20,000 miles per hour - but  _ still. _

He sighs, tearing his gaze from the windows. “You guys are gonna have to suit up and strap in for the rip, y’know?”

It’s Aris that responds, without even looking up from his work. “Yeah,” he calls back noncommittally.

“Find anything?” he sighs again. There’s no response this time, and Thomas sighs for a third and final time, dragging himself up from his chair. He wanders out of the room and into the corridor, walking with no purpose. He remembers doing this often at WCKD, just snaking through the maze of hallways whenever he had the chance. Not that they had a lot of free time between classes and evaluations and project work, but it was still something he made an effort to do. It was calming to just be able to  _ walk _ , with no objective or purpose or result riding on it.

It’s pretty polarizing to walk the halls of their ship after years spent at WCKD. There, everything was a stark and punishing white. Aboard the WCKD-1 everything is softer, coloured in a warm kind of charcoal hue, with little blueish lights dotting the floors just beside each wall. Thomas likes it a lot, actually.

He ends up in the sleeping area, the room dark save for the trail of LEDs lining the floor. He recognizes the sickled feet hanging off the edge of one of the bottom bunks immediately.

“Hey, Newt,” he says, ducking under the top bunk and climbing onto the bed beside his friend. “Oh. And Minho.”

Minho gives a nod of acknowledgement, then closes his eyes again. As high-energy as the boy could be, Thomas knows that Minho was often prone to spells of extreme tiredness, and could often be found napping in the strangest of places.

Newt speaks quietly. “How’s it look?”

“Like a big, glass bubble.”

Newt nods then, smiling that smile Thomas knew meant he was remembering something about his life before WCKD. Newt had been recruited a bit later than the others; he remembered more about what it was like beyond the walls of the facility.

Thomas lets his head fall on Newt’s shoulder, mimicking Minho. Newt breathes in deeply.

“‘Bout two months after the first set of flares, my mum came home with this big grin spread right ‘cross her face. Said she had a surprise for us.”

Thomas smiles. He loved the moments like these, where Newt was just  _ happy _ . Plain and simple, nothing else. A moment passes, and Thomas thinks that maybe Newt had gone back into his memories again. “What was it?” he asks softly.

“A bottle of bubbles,” he continues, almost chuckling at the thought. “Y’know, the ones that come with the little wand stuck in the cap, and you blow with it?”

Thomas has only a very muddled image of the thing in his head, but he gets the concept. He nodded into Newt’s shoulder anyway.

“She’d found it just sitting on a shelf at the food bank. Swiped it up and brought it home for Lizzy and I. She must’ve been - god, four years old then? No more than that.” His tone was almost dreamlike, his face outlined in the dim blue light, just visible in Thomas’ peripheral vision. He continues on. “Pretty well made our bloody year with just one afternoon of that thing. There wasn’t much left, so we had to take turns. It was everything to her.”

Thomas can sense the story is finished by the way Newt’s voice falls at the end, suddenly melancholy. It happened often when he talked about his sister. Thomas wasn’t sure what exactly had happened to her, but he knows it probably wasn’t good. He’d never had the guts to outright ask Newt, but in all honesty, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the details.

Newt is silent, then. The slow rise and fall of his shoulder underneath Thomas’ cheek would lead to the conclusion he’d fallen to sleep alongside Minho, but his eyes remained open and staring straight ahead.

Another sigh escapes Thomas’ lips - seems like all he’d been doing lately - and loops his arm around Newt’s. His body relaxes against him, blond head lolling to rest on Thomas’ own. With three pairs of lungs breathing slowly in sync, Thomas finally closes his eyes and sleeps.

 

 

_ He’s sitting in his chair at the front of the ship beside Harriet, but something’s wrong. From behind the thick glass of his helmet, he can see his friend reaching out to him, but she’s too far away. Her words are muffled by the barrier, but he can tell she’s in distress. Thomas twists his head, and sees the others all around him, strapped into their chairs. No one is wearing a helmet but Thomas. _

_ His sight is shifted to the front windows, then, and what he sees is astounding, amazing, impossible. The space around the ship is warped, a thick bubble of inky black dotted with stars stretching its way seemingly around him, like looking out from the inside of a globe. _

_ The rip. _

_ A pair of hands grip the sides of Thomas’ helmet, jarring him back to reality. Harriet stares at him, eyes full of tears. The ship begins to shake as her expression turns bitter. “You did this,” she mouths, lips curling into a snarl on the last word. _

_ Before he can understand what she means, the front panel of the ship is torn off, sucked toward the rip. Nine bodies - his friends - follow suit, flung into the warped void. Thomas strains against the straps of his chair, screaming as he reaches out to them, already knowing they’re gone forever. Suddenly Teresa is standing in front of him, tears streaming freely down her bloodied face. “I’m sorry, Tom.” Her voice is all around him. _

_ He blinks, and then he’s sitting at the head of a long, white table. _

_ Ava Paige stands opposite him, hair piled neatly on top of her head. “Severance is now complete.” _

 

 

He wakes up screaming.

In an instant, Newt and Minho are around him. They’d figured out a long time ago that the only thing they could do with Thomas’ nightmares was to just be there, and wait it out. Eventually, the screams subside into soft sobs, and Thomas buries his head in Minho’s leg, releasing the grip he’d had on Newt’s hip. With hushed reassurances, Newt began to to rub soft circles onto Thomas’ back, stuttering up and down, while Minho held tight to the his hand.

He hadn’t had a nightmare that bad in a long time, so long that the terror that came immediately afterward had almost become foreign to him. Almost. One thing that hadn’t left, though, was his best friends. It was always them that were there when Thomas woke up, no matter what.

Back when they’d been kids, Thomas and Minho shared a room in WCKD. When Newt came along, he was given a bed in their room, too. Once the final candidates had been chosen, they’d each gotten their own room - but at that point the three of them were so used to falling asleep next to each other that they’d more often than not just end up crashing in each other’s rooms anyway. It was a lot easier to fit the three of them in one bed back then.

The WCKD staff never seemed to be put off by it - in fact, Thomas remembers, they’d actually gone as far as to  _ encourage  _ it. It was obvious, now, as to why. They were probably thrilled that their candidates had already started forming the strong bonds required of a mission crew. It’s ridiculous, now that Thomas actually considers it - WCKD had pushed a bunch of children to become friends for the sole reason that it would make things easier once they trapped them on a one-way trip to space six years later. Absolutely nothing about their childhoods had been even remotely close to normal, not even the friends they’d made.

At that moment, Thomas didn’t care if his friends were pre-selected or not. He wouldn’t trade them for the entire world - extrasolar or otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late AND a short chapter???? im slipping


	14. dive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew reaches the rip.

Harriet takes a deep breath and stares into the literal bubble of her fate. She can feel her heart rate rising already, palms beginning to moisten with sweat. Somehow, she feels more nervous going into the rip than she did for the launch - and she doesn’t even have to really _do_ anything for the rip, just make sure the ship keeps going on it’s automated course. If anything goes wrong, there will be absolutely nothing she or Thomas can do. The thought sends chills down her spine.

Just as Harriet begins to contemplate the terrifying possibilities, there’s a soft voice from behind her. “Doesn’t really look like a _rip,_ does it?” Harriet turns her head to see Sonya standing there, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“No, it doesn’t.” Harriet swivels, swinging her legs up over the arm of her chair. “Spacetime is weird.”

“Yeah,” Sonya says with a smile. “a good weird, though.”

“Oh, the best.”

“Hey.” Sonya frowns then, checking the watch around her wrist. “What time did you say we were making contact?”

“Oh, just-” Harriet checks her own watch, squinting at the numbers. “Holy shit, twelve minutes, fuck.” Her legs fly back over the armrest, planting firmly in front of her as she leans into the console. Sonya giggles almost inaudibly behind her, sighing as she falls into her own seat, buckling up.

“Everyone, get your butts up to flight and control. T-minus twelve minutes from the rip. EVA suits on, in case anything goes wrong.” _As if that would save us._ Harriet falls back into her chair, buckling up her various restraints right away. If she’d lost track of time that easily, there was no telling when she’d remember to put on her goddamned _seatbelts_ if she didn’t right then.

“Harriet, we got this. _You_ got this. Relax,” Sonya says, and relief already starts to creep down Harriet’s throat.

As the rest of the crew starts to file into the room, Harriet mutters a quick prayer to herself. She wasn’t religious in the slightest, but she liked to believe that the pioneers of modern science were somewhere, watching over her. The people who discovered the laws that governed her chances of making it through the next fifteen minutes alive - her heroes, the ones she’d studied and tried to emulate her entire life. Mathematicians, engineers, astronomers, physicists - she’d take all the help she could get right now.

Thomas falls into his chair, beside Harriet’s, and lets out a long sigh. He looks pretty nervous - wide eyes, ceaseless fidgeting - but not nearly as much of a wreck as Harriet caught a glimpse of earlier on in the day. She can tell that he’s trying really hard to keep his shit together.

“You good?” Harriet asks quietly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Thomas replies, nodding, “I’m-”

“Hey dipshits!” It’s Minho, of course. “Why does everyone look like they’re holding in a massive fucking shit? We’re in _space!_ ” There’s a small _woop_ from the other side of the room, (Rachel, presumably) and Harriet twists around - Minho is standing on his chair, facing the group. She has to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

“We are the first humans in the history of _ever_ to venture past our solar system. Can’t you all see how fucking _incredible_ that is?” His voice has just the slightest edge of hysteria in it, a hint of his own nerves showing through. He continues on anyway. “We’re space pioneers! Explorers of the goddamned void!”

There’s a couple more cheers, and a few laughs. Minho pauses, and Harriet smiles wide. That boy was so ridiculous - a fucking pep talk - but it seemed to be exactly what everyone needed. “Christopher Columbus? Who needs that fucking _loser,_ ” he starts again, more confident. He props one leg up on the armrest, like Captain Morgan. “We don’t need that racist murdering asshole. We have us. We have Rachel Bandi,” he says, “goddess of plants and medicine. If I had to be stranded in space with anyone, it’d be her.” Rachel rolls her eyes but gets up and takes a bow nonetheless.

Minho turns around the room, announcing each and every crew member in turn. “And Isaac Newton - not the real deal, but holy shit did we get close.”

“Oh, thanks, Minho.” Newt snorts.

“Anytime, Newt,” Minho laughs. “And last, but certainly not even close to least, Teresa fucking Agnes.” She gives Minho a Look, but still smiles. “Our fearless commander. An absolute genius and the one who truly keeps us all together. Teresa, on behalf of everyone on this ship - fuck, everyone on the planet Earth - thank you.”

The room breaks out into cheers, and Teresa wipes at the corner of her eye gingerly. “Minho,” she says, smiling genuinely for what seemed to be the first time in months.

After a moment, the chatter dies back down, and Minho breaks out into a grin that can only be described as shit-eating. ‘Aaannd, you’ve all been successfully distracted,” he says smugly, glancing at his watch, “we are now at T-minus two and half minutes until contact. You’re welcome!”

Harriet gasps, Thomas doing the same. They lock eyes - wide and full of panic - then burst out laughing. “You idiot!” she calls back jokingly, already buckling back into her seat. Facing the rip head on, Harriet can barely see the _regular_ void of space behind the edges of the bubble. She blinks up in awe, taking it in for just a second before forcing her attention down to the console in front of her, flipping switches and checking numbers. Thomas is a mirror image.

“Everyone buckled in?” Thomas asks, not looking up. A chorus of _yeah_ s carries out.

“EVA suits on?” Harriet follows. More affirmations. “Alright, helmets on.”

There’s the familiar hissing and clicking of helmets being secured and suits pressurizing. Harriet takes a deep breath. “T-minus one minute.” The bubble doesn’t look like a bubble anymore, but a kind of mirror holding thousands of stars. A snow globe, maybe. She has no idea how fast they’re approaching, now, the rip taking up the windows’ entire field of view. Nobody speaks, just the quiet sound of her own breathing echoing in Harriet’s helmet as she stares out at her fate. It’s simultaneously the most breathtaking and the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen.

And then the edge of the ship dips into it like the first toe into a lake before dawn.

In a second, the entire ship is immersed. The ship begins to shake violently and Sonya’s hand flies to Harriet’s, squeezing hard. Harriet squeezes back, eyes frozen on the impossible sight just barely beyond her reach. A tiny part of her almost wants to reach out and let her fingertips graze the window, but she’s afraid even the slightest disturbance might shatter it, leaving no boundary between her and the literal innards of spacetime.

Her brain can’t quite process what her eyes are seeing. And if she’s being completely honest, Harriet is pretty damn sure that even if it could, she wouldn’t be able to understand it anyway. The theory is all there in her mind, but _seeing_ the actual thing is incomprehensible. And even in all her awe and confusion, the ship still flies forward, the walls of space and time seeming to stretch endlessly before and behind them. Lights flicker on the console, but nobody moves. Nobody breathes. The collage of stars - plastered, almost, on the walls of their tunnel through time and space - blur as they fly by. There’s not even a second to consider how many worlds just like theirs they could be passing by before there’s a dark spot in the distance, growing, growing, until- the shaking stops and time stands still. The entire ship breathes a collective sigh, then together a quiet gasp.

 

Laying in front of them, a perfect sphere of marbled orange and beige in the distance, is Proxima b.

  


> **LOG ENTRY 0019006720 | ID A7 MINHO | 234.2.26**
> 
> I’m not gonna lie, I think I might have teared up a little bit when we first saw Proxima b - great name, I know. We’re working on a new one, something a little more personal. Anyway, holy fuck. It’s beautiful. Looks sort of like someone spilled coffee creamer on a disc of rusted iron, plus an ocean. An ocean! Well, kind of. It’s interspersed with a lot more landforms like islands than the oceans back on Earth, but that’s only ‘cause it’s a bit hotter on good ol’ Proxima b. (Terrible name!)
> 
> We’re supposed to be landing up in the northern hemisphere, just above one of the main bodies of water. There’s a mountain range bordering it - typical tectonic activity would have caused that, and judging by our preliminary scans it seems like they’re not unusually high compared to what kind of mountains we’re familiar with. (not personally, of course. Ha.) In fact, they’re pretty comparable to the Rockies back on Earth.
> 
> Camp will be in the little valley between ocean and mountain - our own perfect seaside town. If all went well a couple years back, the main supplies for setting up camp should be right in the middle of that valley. I’m fucking excited. We’ve spent our entire lives in the WCKD complex, and now we get an entire planet with base camp in prime resort location. Tell me that’s not awesome.
> 
> I wish I could do an EVA right now, just to get a better look at the place. Teresa would never approve it, obviously, but I might just go behind her back and strap myself to the side of the ship anyway. Thomas says we’ll be there in two days, but I might die if I have to wait that long. I want to discover every damn inch of that thing. And fuck, I need to get off of this ship. Space is cool, but new planets are cooler. A place to finally call home is cooler.
> 
> I think that it’s really lifted everyone’s spirits - seeing it with their own eyes. Maybe it’s just ‘cause we’re not in a solar system where our sun is trying to kill us anymore. Whatever it is, everyone is starting to finally get back to normal again. Even Teresa, to some extent. Less crying and staring off into space for half an hour and more leading, commanding. She still spends most of her nights hunched over her console, burning the system’s code into her brain, looking for an error - hell, she could probably program her watch to run the ship at this point. Actually, that isn’t a bad idea. Maybe I’ll talk to her about that later.
> 
> Anyway, this is actually happening. We’re doing this - and all on our fucking own! Take that, WCKD. Your comms are about as shitty as your trust in us - and we’re still carrying out your last-ditch effort to save the human race. And get this, we might actually get it done! You’re welcome, dickheads!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


	15. rogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew tries to work out their fuel problem before descending to the surface of proxima b.

Sonya sighs for what seems like the millionth time that hour, looking again from her notebook to the console. The numbers check out - she’s redone her calculation close to fifty times now, and it’s always the same answer. Something is definitely wrong.

She speaks tentatively. “Hey, Harriet?”

The other girl drops her book on the floor immediately, looking happy to be rid of it. “Yeah?” Sonya glances down at the glorified pamphlet.

“Reading manuals again?” She giggles, forgetting her worries of a moment prior.

“Oh yeah,” Harriet says, lolling her head back over the side of her chair. “Cryofreezer. If shit stops working, I’ll be the one to swoop in and save those precious eggs.”

Sonya wrinkles her nose at the thought. Serious repopulation was going to have to become a concern of theirs very soon. She pushes the thought out of her mind, humming. “Actually, um, I think we might have a more immediate problem,” she says, biting her lip.

Harriet sits up, expression suddenly serious. “What is it?” she asks, voice urgent.

Sonya takes a deep breath. “I’ve been going over all the data for launch specs and back - back when I used to disappear a lot, they were really making me calculate for our launch. Not a theoretical one but _ours,_ Harriet, and now we’re up here with more mass than we planned and I keep going over the numbers and our fuel gauges are indicating that-”

“Sonya-”

“I think we might not have enough fuel.”

Harriet is stunned silent, and there’s no sound in the room except for Sonya’s ragged breathing.

“ _What?_ ” Both girls’ heads whip toward the voice - it belongs to Rachel, who’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed tensely, and flanked by a now very panicked looking Teresa.

“What?” Teresa parrots, obviously trying very hard to maintain her composure as she nearly spits the word at them. “Start from the beginning, go,” she says, converting immediately into Commander Mode as she strides over and sits in front of Sonya.

Sonya takes another breath, trying to organize her thoughts. Teresa’s eyes are so intense, so _focused._ It’s almost scary how much concentration the girl can have when she wants to. Sonya closes her eyes and opens her mouth. “Okay, about three months-”

“Wait,” Teresa interrupts, holding a hand up. She twists upwards and mashes a finger down on the console. “Thomas, get in here.” Teresa offers a small smile to Sonya, which she’s grateful for. There was something about Teresa’s presence that had a calming effect. With her brain on board, they’d figure something out for sure.

A few minutes later, Thomas wanders into the room. “I’m assuming by ‘here’, you meant here?” he asks playfully, grinning at his own humour (if you could call it that). But then he sees the pile of girls gathered on the floor, looking grave as ever, and he frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Come sit down.”

Sonya spends the next hour explaining her findings in excruciating detail. By the end of it, half the crew is sprawled out on the control room floor among sheets upon sheets of calculations, pouring over them. Aris and Thomas spend an entire fifteen minutes bickering over chemical reactions of rocket fuel before they realize they’re arguing for the exact same thing. Gally, Teresa, and Sonya write identical page long solutions confirming their fears - they definitely have a lot less fuel left than expected because of the increased mass.

The next hour consists of non-stop brainstorming - ‘working the problem’, as Chancellor Paige and the rest of the WCKD staff would always encourage them to do when they got stuck in their lessons or simulations. An old adage from way back when the United States was its own thing and had its own space agency. That one phrase had levelled the minds and saved the lives of countless astronauts before them, and Sonya was damned if she didn’t admit it made her feel just a bit more hopeful.

The first suggestion is simple: just get rid of the extra mass. Obviously they can’t ditch their supplies, but there has to be _something_ on board the crew wouldn’t need anymore. Minho suggests they throw Gally out the airlock. _Have you seen the guy? Fuckin’ tree, probably’d get rid of at least two hundred kilos._ That one earned a few laughs, a couple eyerolls, and a jab in the ribs.

At one point, Teresa gives a sharp laugh (more like a shriek, really) and covers her mouth immediately afterwards. The rest of the crew just stares. “We could get rid of the comms. Don’t work anyway,” she says, quirking an eyebrow, with just a hint of crazy in her eyes. There’s a second of silence before the entire room erupts into laughter.

There are other ideas thrown around, like Aris and Thomas’ chemistry pipe dream. It actually wouldn’t have been all that impossible, if they’d had a full lab and abundant resources. But hey, space. There’s also the thought of using another planet in the system - Proxima a - as a gravity slingshot, but that’s declared too risky. Using fuel from the lander would just make it so they can’t actually get to the surface of Proxima b, and burning the jets and just using up all the fuel left way too much room for catastrophe if something were to go wrong.

All in all, they’re at a loss. But with thirty-four hours until they reached orbit and the ten most brilliant minds Sonya knew on board, she knows they’ll find a way.

  


> **UNKNOWN LOG | NETWORK ID 00A3486J9OP?1 | Date 234.2.27, Time 0434**
> 
> [002478]: you there?
> 
> [004236]: Are you sure this connection is safe?
> 
> [002478]: of course i am, wired it myself. we’re invisible jorge, don’t worry.
> 
> [004236]: Alright. How’s being an IT girl?
> 
> [002478]: awful. it’s like they’re trying to punish me for dating their star labrat. they just have me monitoring random pseudo-government crap. surveillance, satellites. boring shit
> 
> [004236]: That’s rough, hermana. At least you still have a job. Forget what the Scorch was like? Or do you miss having those things try eating your flesh?
> 
> [002478]: god, don’t remind me. i’d rather be sent into orbit than go back out there
> 
> [004236]: Well, you might actually get to. We’ve started working on actually developing Sonya and Gally’s space junk thing. You’re young and expendable, if we need someone to go up there it’ll probably be you.
> 
> [002478]: fuck. you guys get all the cool shit. i swear moving us to different sectors was punishment, too.
> 
> [002478]: i wish they’d let us see each other more than once a week. i feel like a prisoner more than an employee.
> 
> [004236]: We’re not like them, Brenda. We came from the Scorch.
> 
> [002478]: i know.
> 
> [002478]: oh fuck, okay, new development.
> 
> [004236]: Oh?
> 
> [002478]: i’ve been monitoring communications with the ship. anonymously, of course, under a different network and all that - they really went through with it, jorge.
> 
> [004236]: Cutting off comms?
> 
> [002478]: yeah. but we’re still receiving everything from them. ingenious, really. but that’s besides the point. i think i might have finally found a way to get a message through to them without wckd knowing.
> 
> [002478]: hello?? this is huge??
> 
> [004236]: Fuck. Well done, hermana.
> 
> [002478]: well done hermana is fuckin right! i’m going to get to fix this, mark my words.
> 
> [004236]: I know you are. Keep me updated - I’ll see you on Thursday. But Brenda, please. Be careful.
> 
> [002478]: i know. i’ll make it simple, just in case wckd somehow sees it. like it’s one of their own messages. we’re going to make this right.
> 
> [004236]: We are, I know that. Now get some sleep - wouldn’t want to be groggy for all that action-packed drone surveillance footage.
> 
> [002478]: oh fuck off. have fun with your space garbage, loser. goodnight.
> 
>   
>    
> 

With everyone strapped back into the shuttle - technically the lander now, seeing as it would be used to, well, _land_ , and that all the shuttle rocketry was gone - Teresa feels a weird kind of nostalgia take over her. It’s not like their lives were ever simple, but being back for the first time since launch reminded her of when times were an infinitesimal bit _simpler._ Before the whole mess with the comms - it seemed like just one problem at first, but it was really just ripping away the curtain to reveal a hundred more. Now, Teresa’s not even sure if she trusts the organization she’d dedicated her entire life to.

But even with that, she’d be crazy not to thank them just a little bit for the sight she was seeing right then. From within the lander, through the front windows, the crew had the most incredible view that anyone could ever have had. It was otherworldly - literally. The planet was gargantuan underneath them. Teresa had spent the past two and a half years in space, feeling as small as she’d ever felt, but somehow from high above their new home Teresa had never felt more insignificant on the cosmic scale.

They’d ended up settling on playing it safe with the fuel dispute, and just letting the WCKD-1l rest in a high orbit as opposed to the planned closer one. Teresa felt kind of dumb going through the motions of sending the report back to WCKD, knowing it wouldn’t reach them, but she did it anyway. Maybe some part of her hoped there was still a chance of fixing the comms. Maybe some part of her knew that if she stopped acting like things were okay, they wouldn’t be anymore.

So, Teresa types out the date and gets to work.


	16. david attenborough, is that you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew lands on proxima b.

“You ready?”

Harriet nods silently, staring straight ahead. Thomas’ voice was more calm than she had expected. It’s not that shocking, though - once Thomas actually managed to channel his concentration into one task, he was known to be scarily focused. This was clearly one of those moments. 

“Ready,” she replies, finally, trying to force all her anxieties out in a big exhale. She needs to be as level-headed as possible for the next ten minutes. The rest of the crew remains dead silent, not even Minho or Rachel or Gally daring to make a single remark. 

Thomas lets out a deep breath, matching Harriet’s own. “Let’s fuckin’ do this.”

Harriet smiles. “Turning off autopilot.”

The front console dims momentarily, just for a second before blinking back to life, switches blinking rapidly. Harriet and Thomas work in tandem, hands flying perfectly around each other to flick switches and press buttons and engage processes at what would appear to any bystander as randomly - but each movement has a precise function, one that brings them closer to the surface of Proxima b.

Harriet’s hand rests on a glorified joystick, fingers ghosting above the metal exterior. She stares straight ahead.

Thomas’ eyes are locked on the console, studying the ever-changing numbers flying across the centre screen. Co-ordinates. “Now,” he says suddenly, and the ship lurches immediately groundward, peeling away from the safety of high orbit as Harriet’s palm presses into the thruster. A loud, low whine fills the control room as the lander cuts into the atmosphere. She briefly wonders what velocity they’d have to reach before the ship’s exterior started burning up - for this atmospheric composition, at least. 

“I’m gonna give it a bit more,” she announces, extending her arm just a little further. The whining turns into screaming, and of all things Thomas  _ laughs.  _

“Beauty,” he mutters, eyes still stuck on the monitor. “You’re good, Harriet.”

She nods, breathing deep. They’re tearing through the clouds now, making their way into the lowest reaches of the thermosphere, toward denser air. 

Thomas’ hand reaches for another lever beside Harriet’s, guiding it minutely to the right. “Attitude adjustment of four degrees.”

“Thank you,” Harriet says curtly. She can see Thomas grin and roll his eyes in her peripheral vision. It had been so long since the two of them had had an opportunity to be so in sync like this. When they had hit about fifteen years old, something had just  _ clicked _ and the two of them became an unstoppable force together in their simulations. 

It was the morning after they failed their very first manual landing sim (quite horribly, Harriet remembers) when Thomas came barreling into her room past lights-out, immediately launching into an inspired tangent about exactly where they went wrong in the sim, no hello or anything of the sort. That’s the moment Harriet knew that if they ended up dying while carrying out their mission, it wouldn’t be their piloting skills to blame. 

Suddenly, the clouds dissipate and the surface of Proxima b lies underneath them, stretching out rusted and brown for miles upon miles. The mountains spike out of the planet’s face like mottled anthills, dotting the surface with no apparent pattern or sensical distribution. Bodies of water, massive and miniscule, are splayed across the land in a similar fashion. It all rushes underneath them as the ship travels along the planet’s equator, getting closer and closer to the surface with every passing second. 

“Adjusting for latitude,” Thomas says then, breaking the awed silence, reaching for his control once more. “Touch down on the next pass, approximately one hundred and forty seconds.”

There’s a body of water underneath them now, the ship so low Harriet can’t see the rusted land. It’s the long stretch, now, she thinks to herself. Mock-ups of the planet’s geographical maps fill her head - stretching along the midsection of the surface is an enormous ocean. Right now, they should be travelling across it diagonally, heading toward the valley before the mountains - their mountains. 

Just then, the mountains make themselves visible on the horizon. “Brace for impact, everyone,” Harriet commands, fingers easing back the control stick. The ship begins to slow, everyone pressed back into their seats. 

“We need to bring her back more,” Thomas says, eyes never leaving the screen in front of him. Constantly analyzing and consequently deciding their fate. Harriet curls her fingers in and pulls back, wincing as the ship fights its own momentum. 

The ocean disappears from view and the valley flies under them, rocks and boulders and the occasional sand drift now distinguishable as they passed. Trillions of kilometres away - absolutely unfathomable distances - but so familiar to the planet they know. 

“Ten seconds.”

“Brace for impact!” Harriet almost laughs as she cranks the lever back, the ship jolting to a stop as it connects with the ground, bumping and shaking as it slows to a creaking stop. For a moment, everything stands still - the crew in their seats, the ship in the dirt. They’re on the ground. The dust settles outside the ship, windows slowly revealing the desert landscape. Everybody just stares, mouths gaping. 

After a minute of shocked silence, Newt is the first one to speak. 

“Well  _ shit _ .” 

The ship erupts into laughter. Harriet couldn’t have put it better herself. 

  
  


When they first step off the ship, Aris is almost sure he’s dreaming. Teresa leads them, then Thomas, then Aris himself. They waddle off one by one, legs shaky and eyes bleary. There’s no flag to plant, just unsure feet shuffling in the soil - the  _ soil.  _

Aris reminds himself to start collecting samples once the initial excitement wears down. He’d be able to set up a decent lab as soon as they got settled near the base of the mountain. Just the thought of finally being able to parse the composition of their new home is enough to make him antsy.

The last of the crew finally makes their way out onto the surface in their bulky EVA suits, each and every one with the same awe and wonder painting their faces as their feet hit the ground. He can only imagine just how the group of them would look to any incident onlookers - a gaggle of disoriented humans, just standing in a clump with their heads twisting and turning like bobbleheads in a hurricane. 

Of course, there are no incident onlookers. 

Teresa’s voice emerges from the ambient static of their in-helmet comms system. “Alright guys, atmosphere seems good. Aris?”

He blinks. “Oh, right,” he says suddenly, remembering his duties. He squints down at his wrist, the tiny console displaying nothing but the temperature. With a few swipes, it shows several percentages. “Seventy-seven percent nitrogen… and, yep, twenty-three percent oxygen, we should be good,” he says, exhaling. He can still barely believe they found a planet with nearly the exact atmospheric composition of their own. 

“We  _ should  _ be good?” Minho asks, skepticism dripping from his words. 

“We’re good,” Aris corrects, rolling his eyes. He and the other execs didn’t spend an entire month cooped up in lab four relentlessly screening through the candidates just for them to get to the best one and die over something as simple as what elements were in the air.

“Alright,” Teresa says then, “depressurizing. Thomas, make sure I don’t die.” Aris sees Thomas’ eyes widen just a bit as Teresa grabs her helmet. With a low hiss and a click, her hands lift the helmet up to reveal her face - not immediately turning red and puffy, which is a good start. 

Everyone holds their breath, Teresa included. Thomas looks like he’s ready to pick Teresa up and hurl her back into the ship. She exhales.

“Alright. Not dead. Vitals good,” she says, smiling down at her own data displayed on her wrist. “We can all-”

“ _ Finally, _ ” Rachel interrupts, depressurizing and dropping her helmet to the ground with a dull  _ thunk _ . “Just about suffocated in that thing.”

“Uh, you can’t-”

“Win, I know. I was kidding.”

The group devolves into chatter, everyone talking excitedly or stretching or roaming around their immediate surroundings. Aris, naturally, finds himself on the ground, gloves off and touching at the regolith. Thomas joins him, lying on his stomach.

“I can’t wait ‘till we can analyze this,” Aris says, rubbing the dirt into his fingers. “First bets on composition?”

“Oh, God. I don’t know,” Thomas confesses, gathering some of the looser regolith in his hands. “Looks pretty similar to ours - at least, the samples they gave us. Can you fucking believe they never let us out to actually see it for real?”

Aris quirks his head to the side, thinking. He can’t remember a time in his life he’d actually gotten to really, truly work with soil - regolith, whatever. Going outside was considered a ridiculous notion at WCKD, a pipe dream. They’d even been hesitant to let him and Thomas work with soil samples, because of the microorganisms they contained. Anything from beyond the walls of the facility was strictly off limits, as a risk to the mission. “Wow, yeah,” is all Aris can say.

“Hey, think we could use this for anything?” Thomas asks, letting the dirt spill back onto the ground.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, make rocket fuel out of dirt?”

Aris considers. “Maybe. Doubtful, though. What about solar?”

“We  _ are _ closer than one AU, we definitely wouldn’t have a shortage of it,” Thomas says, nodding. Then he laughs, a short burst. “Got any polysilicon lying around?”

Aris rolls his eyes and throws a handful of dirt in Thomas’ direction, missing. “Whatever. We’ll figure something out.”

Suddenly, a cloud of dust puffs up into the air. As it settles, both Aris and Thomas coughing, Minho emerges. “Making mudpies?” 

“We’re doing some serious chemistry here, Min. You wouldn’t understand.”

Minho shoots a glare at Thomas, then clears his throat. “Hmm, seems we’ve got some healthy regolith here.” He puts on a british accent, putting his face down right into the dirt, looking absolutely  _ fascinated  _ by it. 

“Okay, neither of us are Newt, so the accent is totally pointless,” Thomas deadpans, unamused.

“Yeah, and regolith isn’t alive so it can’t be healthy,” Aris chimes in.

Minho rolls his eyes, continuing as if he hadn’t heard the two. “A beautiful specimen, indeed. If only I could make sweet sweet love to this soil-”

Thomas launches a handful of dirt right at Minho’s face, coating every plane of his shocked expression. Thomas bursts out laughing. 

“I’m leaving,” Aris announces, getting as far away from the dirt fight as possible. Maybe someday he’d feel like spending an hour cleaning handfuls of Proxima b regolith out of his EVA suit, but today was not that day.

He wanders over to the fringes of the group instead, taking in a deep breath. He wonders if he’ll be able to feel the extra two percent of oxygen. Breathing starts to come easier with every inhale, but he’s pretty sure that has more to do with the fact that they actually  _ made it.  _ From here on out, things would be a lot easier. They’d load everything off the lander, set up base camp with the supplies they’d sent out years ago, and-

“Hey, guys?” It’s Gally that speaks above the chatter, emerging from behind the ship with a grave look on his face. Aris sits up. His stomach leaps into his throat. 

“Where the fuck are our supplies?”


	17. right in front of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the crew figures out what the hell is going on with their supplies, and prepares for yet another journey.

> **LOG ENTRY 008752009 | ID A5 ISAAC NEWTON | 234.3.1**
> 
> So, we’re definitely very screwed. I mean, we’ve been screwed before - getting caught sneaking around at WCKD, fucking up entire datasets of research, getting into fights with personnel - but this time is different. This time we’re really bloody well screwed.
> 
> The supplies are nowhere to be seen! Just fucking not there! Now, in a situation like this I’d normally be starting to get a bit irritated with it all, but truthfully? I’m having a hard time not finding it ridiculous! Here we are, a bunch of teenagers just sat down in the middle of a foreign planet with no provisions. And everyone is acting like a bunch of loonies! Rachel’s just laughing, Winston’s stood there with his mouth hanging wide open like he’s trying to catch some space flies, and Sonya looks like she’s about to have a serious cry. Tommy’s covered in dirt (unrelated, I suppose), Minho’s gone for a bloody _run,_ just up and bolted for the mountains, and Teresa looks like she’s about to pop a hernia. Maybe Win can help her with that.
> 
> So, yeah. It’s a tad difficult to find it in me to lose it when everyone else seems to have beaten me to it. So much for working the problem. I suppose it’s good to have at least one person who’s calm. Guess that’s kind of my role, anyways. Regardless, we’re pretty fucking screwed on this one. Not pointing any fingers, but _someone_ definitely botched the whole dump the supplies in the valley by the mountain thing. Supposedly we had confirmation that they landed on the planet, so there’s that, at least. At least that’s what Aris is muttering over by Thomas.
> 
> I’m pretty sure that - oh, fuck. Teresa is calling us. Later, you hunk of useless metal! Hopefully Teresa will be able to fix you.  Maybe then we could ask WCKD where our bloody supplies are.

 

 

By the time Newt arrives at the scene, strolling over with this content look on his face as if their entire world hadn’t just collapsed around them, Rachel has stopped laughing.

“Thanks for joining us,” she mutters, the words coming out meaner than intended.

Newt rolls his eyes. “You too?”

“God, sorry. I’m just - what the fuck, right?” She sighs, grabbing Newt’s arm and leaning into him, suddenly exhausted.

“Yeah, I know,” he offers, patting the hand clinging to his upper arm. Rachel’s grateful for the reassurance, as small as it is. They were all in this mess together.

“Okay, everyone, let’s sit down. We’re having a gathering,” Teresa announces, dropping to the dirt with crossed legs. Everyone else follows suit. “Okay,” she continues, looking around the lopsided circle. “wait. Where’s Minho?”

Heads swivel back and forth like barstools. Minho is nowhere to be seen. “He went,” Newt starts, clearing his throat. “he went that way,” he says, extending an arm toward the mountains.

“He-” Teresa cuts herself off, closing her eyes tight. “He _what_?”

“I saw him-”

“You know what, whatever. We’ll start without him. That fucking - okay, okay.” she takes a second to breathe, composing herself. “We’re going to work the problem,” she says calmly, enunciating each word. “Would anybody like to begin?” She quietly mutters into her wrist, surely sending a message to Minho over the EVA comms network as the attention shifts to Gally, clearing his throat.

“Here’s what we know: we sent up supplies for base camp and colonization what - eight years ago?”

“Eight years,” Aris confirms.

“Okay, eight years ago. We did that, and we got confirmation via radar pings from the supplies themselves that they landed within the fifty kilometre radius of our target, yeah?”

It’s Teresa this time. “Yeah.”

“Alright, so obviously we can see they’re not here. But they could be within fifty kilometres of here.”

“But we flew right above here at least five times. We didn’t see any supplies,” Sonya interjects softly. As much as she hates it, Rachel has to admit it’s a good point. They had a pretty clear view of their spot for sure during the last two flybys, and there was nothing obviously out of place over the flat desert of the valley.

Gally softens, just a bit. “I know. Right now I’d say we’re about twenty kilometres from the water, and probably close to fifty from the mountains.”

Rachel perks up. “Could they be there? The mountains?” It made sense. It was on the edge of the radius, sure, but that was really just an approximation. And it would explain why they didn’t see anything in the valley.

“Hey, yeah, maybe,” Thomas says, sitting up. “That would explain why we didn’t see anything before we landed!” He was getting it.

“That would make sense,” Teresa says carefully, clearly not wanting to get anyone’s hopes up too early. “But how would we…” She trails off, thinking.

Thomas continues on. “And it might even be better to build camp on the mountains - Teresa, where are you - oh whatever. But yeah, no, cause it’d definitely be safer up there in terms of tsunamis cause we’re right near the water-”

“And this planet is definitely tectonically active, I mean look at these mountain ridges!” Rachel interjects.

“Exactly!” Thomas is standing now, grin spread wide across his face.

“Definitely more geological variety up there, too,” Newt adds. Aris and Thomas share an excited look, like kids at the sight of an ice cream shop.

Harriet clears her throat. “Guys, I hate to be that person, but we still don’t know if that’s where our supplies even are.”

“Yeah, she’s right,” Sonya says, “we won’t know until we locate using the-”

“Guys!” Teresa calls, hidden inside the lander. Her voice carries out, barely even obstructed. “Did we leave the fucking nav equipment on the other shipl?”

There’s a moment of silent terror, but Newt calls back before the dread can really set in. “Nope, Minho took it. Came in and grabbed it just before he left.”

“Oh.” Teresa emerges from the ship, standing with her hands on her hips. “Okay. That’s alright, once he gets back we can locate the supplies and head over there. Easy peasy.” And with that, the chaos of just ten minutes before melts away.

Rachel smiles. It’s nice to finally see Teresa smile for once. She watches her slip back into the lander, off to mess with the comms again, no doubt. Everyone else wanders around or back into the ship, pulling out projects or papers to pass the time. Rachel yawns loudly, and leans further into Newt’s arm.

“I’m taking a nap,” she announces, already feeling the pull of sleep. How long had it been since she’d had a full night of sleep? She can’t remember any since the wake-up. Newt grunts in return to her statement, but doesn’t move.

She dreams of red mountains and red stars falling below uncharted horizons.

 

By the time she’s woken up - which is quite a bit later than Rachel anticipated - the crew is lugging supplies off the lander, busy at work. Except for Newt, of course, who sits in the same place on the ground, watching the work be done.

“You get out of that ‘cause of me?” Rachel asks, sitting up and rubbing her neck.

“Oh yeah,” Newt replies, leaning back with his arms crossed behind his head.

She rolls her eyes. She can see it perfectly: Teresa - no, it would be Thomas, probably - would come over, just barely out of breath from all the lifting, with this deranged look on his face. _Are you gonna help?_ Newt would just smile - that devilish grin Thomas knew so well -  and tilt his head toward his shoulder. _Hasn’t slept in days. It’d be a right crime to wake her now, wouldn’t it Tommy?_ God, that idiot.

Then, Minho steps out of the lander. “Oh, hey, he’s back!” Rachel says, turning to Newt, who’s still stretched out on his back. “Newt, what happened with Minho?”

He fills her in. Essentially, Minho had gotten back about ten minutes after she’d fallen asleep, having run out six kilometres toward the mountains. With the navigational gear, he’d honed in on the radio signal sent out from the supplies - pretty much directly on top of the mountains, just like Rachel had predicted. He’d then used the comms built into his EVA suit to communicate with WCKD-1l, and sent himself a radar image of Proxy (which is apparently what he’d decided they were calling their planet, now) taken from orbit - a rough map of their region of the planet. It had taken all of twenty five minutes, and he was just about to map out a route traversing up the mountain when Teresa’s voice crackled on inside his suit, telling him to get back.

When he did, he relayed all this with animated gestures and yelling aplenty. Then Teresa approved his plan of action, and they got to work right away on unloading everything they needed to set up camp. They were only taking the essentials - food, water, a couple handheld consoles for log and (hopefully, eventually) comm purposes. Everything else they could come back for once base camp was set up - hell, they could fly it all back, once they got their hands on the extra fuel that was supposed to be with the supplies on the mountain.

It would take about two or three days of walking, depending on their pace. But with as much as they had to take with them, it would more likely be three, or even four. Then there was the business of _climbing_ the mountain. That’s a whole other story.

But it feels doable. With everything they’d survived up until this point, a trek across the desert would feel like a walk in the park. Rachel stands, feeling more rested than she had in a long time. She holds a hand out to Newt, pulling him up from the ground.

It’s time to get to work.

  


> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 234.3.1, Time 1410**
> 
> **TO: Executive Team, Back-Up**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: CONFIDENTIAL - Observation**
> 
> Our communications team has received confirmation that the Expedition mission crew has landed on the surface of Proxima b, officially initiating phase five. Subjects continue to use log entries as journals of sorts, keeping us updated on a more personal level - thank you, Dr. Trent, for introducing this idea years ago. It’s working splendidly, and all subjects appear to be showing normal levels of stress up to this point in the mission.
> 
> Our supply mission of 226 was a success, supplies landing just 50km from intended target, within the radius of acceptable error. I have no doubt our subjects will locate them and commence procedures promptly. Another detail to note: A5, in his most recent log, mentioned A1’s efforts to ‘fix’ the communications system on their end. Any progress on this exploit needs to be monitored quite carefully, and developments will be reported to me immediately.
> 
> We took a risk, testing them like this, but I’m delighted with how our subjects have responded thus far. All monitoring efforts will continue until further notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE ARE GETTING CLOSE TO THE END ,,,,chapters will b getting longer from here on out!!!


	18. we're going on an adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> minho makes a map, and the crew gets started toward the mountains.

If there’s one thing Minho misses about Earth, it’s the lightning-fast network connectivity. With only one satellite - not even that, it’s WCKD-1 and their GPS satellite they deployed back when they were up in orbit - orbiting the planet, what would have taken a fraction of a second on Earth is still dragging by after - Minho checks his watch - two minutes and twenty seconds. Holy. Shit.

It’s a necessary evil, Minho knows, but god, could it _be_ any slower? By the time the map (it’s not even a _real_ map, just a shitty satellite picture, but hey, it’s something) transfers to their handheld consoles, the crew will be past the age of reproduction and this whole Back-Up crap will have been for nothing, all because WCKD-1’s camera was too fancy and captured too many pixels.

Minho scoffs. Hand drawn maps had always held a much warmer place in his heart. Teresa had been bugging him for almost a year to let her work with him on a new kind of map technology, some 3D interactive bullshit. He had to admit it sounded _awesome_ , but it kind of took away the fun of it - getting out on the terrain, really knowing the feel of the land - _that_ was what Minho loved most - or, at least what he remembered loving most.

Though WCKD had gotten him early, Minho still had distinct memories of his dad’s maps, hundreds of them, handmade, bleached and weathered by the unforgiving sun. Before the flares - eons ago, it seemed - Minho’s dad had been an urban developer. When the flares hit, WCKD had enlisted him to map the damages. With every satellite basically crumbled to ash in Earth’s orbit, the era of cartography returned just like that. They were suddenly explorers, making their way across the continent like voyagers, discovering new worlds every day, the scorched husks of civilization. For the areas known to be dangerous, Minho was left behind, usually in care of some no-name, low rung WCKD employee.

One day, his dad didn’t come back. That’s when WCKD officially took him in. Making good use of their new acquisition, they slapped the label of _candidate_ on his back like an almost joke, just to see what would happen.

What they didn’t know, obviously, was that their orphan/burden/personal demon would be the one to lead the sole survivors of the flare pandemic across a planet four and a half light years away. So take that, WCKD.

It’s kind of awesome. Except for the fucking map still hadn’t loaded yet. The whole image is there, finally, but it’s absurdly blurry, resolving itself with agonizing speed. Minho’s not sure he can handle much longer. He might have to call in Teresa to work her computer voodoo magic on the thing if it takes much-

Then there’s a soft _ding,_ which Minho can only assume means it’s done - and it is. Though it’s no Monet, it’s actually kind of nice, now that Minho can see the image on a screen bigger than the width of his wrist. There’s the valley, taking up pretty much the entire right half and bottom third of the screen, with the mountains dominating the upper left. There’s even a glimpse of the shoreline along the very bottom left edge. It’s nice. Their planet is nice.

Just off the middle of the image, to the right, is what can only be the lander, a big greyish black smudge on the dull orange, flanked by 10 little dots - the crew. Minho’s fingers fly over the keyboard for a moment, adding lines and circles and texts all over the image, like a 2nd grade art project (not that he’d know if this qualified, his ‘2nd grade art project’ was probably a lesson on general relativity). The result is a crude imitation of a map you might find in a shopping mall, with a big star on the lander and the words _YOU ARE HERE,_ a red circle placed on top of what appears to be the peak of the mountain, and an arrow connecting the two with _50 KM_ placed beside it. Nowhere near what he was used to going off of, but it’d do for now.

Besides, actually making a nice map was the fun part. Once base camp was all set up, he’d be able to make way back to the lander and really get to know the terrain. It’s his first time really getting to explore since he was four years old, and Minho’s a liar if he says he isn’t beyond excited.

 

“Hey Min, almost done?” Teresa calls from outside.

“Yeah,” he yells back, standing up with a loud _crack_ coming from his knees, gathering up his console. “Be there in a sec.”

He strips off his massive, clunky EVA suit and drapes it over his seat in the lander. Good _riddance._ Despite the best body temperature regulation technology WCKD’s money could buy, the suits had still been glorified sweat rags. Necessary for space travel, sure, but now that they were on the surface, there was no need to lug them all the way up the mountain. They could come back for them once they set up base.

With a final stretch, Minho makes his way out of the lander and back into the sunshine - he figures it’s called starshine, now, or proxshine, or whatever - which is blazing directly above them.

“Alright, so we have the map,” he says, trying not to laugh as he says the last word. The group crowds in. “We’re here,” he continues, mashing a finger on the screen, right on the star.

“Oh, wow, couldn’t tell, thanks buddy.”

“Rachel, shut up,” he says without hesitation, a reflex. She snorts in return. “Anyway. We’re gonna grab our stuff, lug it all the way here,” he pauses, dragging his finger to the base of the mountain. “and climb up until we find our other stuff. Easy peasy.” He shoots a grin at Teresa.

Teresa rolls her eyes in return, then claps her hands together. “Sounds good. Any objections?” Silence. “Then, let’s-”

“Wait,” Thomas says, an air of tension suddenly falling over the group. Teresa raises an eyebrow, eyes suddenly full of panic. He waits another beat, dragging it out. Then, he breaks out into a grin. “I have something to say.”

“Oh my god,” Gally nearly moans. Sonya huffs an annoyed sigh, and Newt holds back laughter.

“God, Thomas, don’t do that!” Harriet scolds, hitting him on the shoulder. The rest of the group, except for Newt and Minho, (who are trying their best to hold in their snickering) mumble in agreement, but the moment of panic is already gone.

“Come on, you know I had to.”

“Whatever, drama queen. What is it, wanna hit us with a speech before our big voyage across the desert?” Teresa asks, sarcastic.

“That’s exactly it!” Thomas exclaims, smiling wide.

“This is gonna be good.”

“Gally, shh!”

“Ahem, may I begin?” Thomas asks curtly. He waits for silence to fall over the group, nine pairs of eyes waiting expectantly. “Alright,” he says finally, shit-eating grin dissolving into a sincere expression, eyes soft. “You guys are my best friends. I mean, you’re my _only_ friends, but what we all have is so much more than that. We’re _family._ And I know everyone here knows that, but it’s really actually an incredible thing, so give me a second here.

“We were all born at a really shitty time. No matter where we came from - and shit, do we have some diverse backgrounds here - all of us were taken, taken in by WCKD and thrust into this insane life before we even knew what it entailed. No one should have to go through that, but we did. If you ask me, the only reason any of us made it out alive is because we have each other- not because of WCKD or the training they gave us, but because we had family. We did this. We’re here because of _us_ \- and if that’s not beautiful, I don’t know what is.

“We’ve survived everything up until this point - the flares, the scorch. Losing our families. WCKD’s testing. Finding out what they were really training us for. Heartbreak. That _fucking_ cornbread, every goddamned day. We made it through it all, and we’re going to make it through this.

“I can’t remember a time where I ever felt like I had a home - except when I’m with you guys. And I know I can’t be the only one that feels like that. You guys are what made all those years worth it. All the testing, all the failed simulations and the isolation periods. All the nights wondering why they picked _me._ Those mountains? Those are for us. That’s our home, not WCKD. So let’s _go!_

The group roars, cheering and laughing and crying and hugging. Something about Thomas’ speeches never failed to unite them completely, a heartfelt reminder of just how incredible their triumphs were. Everyone, fueled by their excitement and love, overwhelming, begins to gather supplies, strapping on backpacks and hefting crates, all working together, perfectly in synchronisation.

Minho inhales deeply, feeling more alive than perhaps he ever had as the air fills his lungs, tightens the straps on his bag, and takes his very first strides toward home.

  


> **LOG ENTRY 0033945012 | ID B1 ARIS JONES | 234.3.02**
> 
> So it’s our second night camping out, and I have to say that I’m quite the fan. It couldn’t be more different than WCKD - it’s kind of funny, actually. Everything was stark white there, but at night it was just black. Pitch black, even. I can’t even remember how many times I bumped into the edge of my bed just trying to find it after lights-out. But god, here. Here it’s so different. I couldn’t lose my way if I tried - the stars. The stars! Everything is so bright at night, nearly as bright as the daytime. You can probably find some kind of metaphor or symbolism in that. I’m sure our teachers back at WCKD would love it.
> 
> The stars are all different here - well, they’re the same stars, just not where we’re used to seeing them. Since we’re in an entirely different place in the galaxy, none of the constellations we know exist anymore. It’s kind of funny, how the things that seem so integral to the universe we live in are just happenstance; they’re just a result of our location. Now, we get to make up new ones, and new stories to go with them. It’s nothing short of amazing, really. I think we’re up to twelve constellations now. Or, twelve that everyone could agree on. Teresa was the first, pointing out a sword-like shape in the south with this whimsical sort of smile on her face. Apparently, the name Brenda comes from the Norse word for sword.
> 
> Newt and Gally are the craziest with it. They’re already trying to measure positions and draw out star charts. Hell, they’re already trying to navigate with them, even though the mountains are literally right in front of us. Couldn’t miss them if you tried. They get bigger each day, looming taller and taller. I think it’ll be just another day now, maybe two. The terrain is getting more diverse the closer we get. Less desert, more dry valley kind of thing. I don’t have any doubts we’ll find some kind of life once we get up to the peak - with milder temperatures, it’ll be the perfect conditions for plants to grow. Rach told me all about her predictions on what we’ll find up there. She and Winston have a bet going. I’d be happy with anything, really.


	19. i wrote this chapter this morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> winston wonders about teresa, and thomas has another nightmare.

When Winston looks back on the past few days, he has to stop and remind himself that they were a thing that actually happened, not some simulation or an ultra-vivid dream. There’s dirt under his fingernails - which is the weirdest fucking thing, really, because before five days ago he hadn’t seen actual dirt for over a decade, and now it was (seemingly) permanently lodged in every pore on his body. 

It’s just as much exciting as it is strange. He can only imagine in what fantastic ways the oils and bacteria and chemicals in his skin were reacting with the Proxima b soil. And, no doubt, what kind of oils and bacteria and chemicals in the  _ dirt  _ were reacting with his own skin. How it would affect them, their eventual crops, their materials,  _ everything.  _ He can’t wait to discover it all.

They’d been trudging through the desert - not that he could call it that now, it was more dirt than sand - for a solid three days, and they’d finally reached the base of the mountains. They’re taller than Winston could have ever imagined, but Minho insisted they weren’t even that big by Earth’s standards. How he was so sure of it, Winston had no idea. He didn’t ask. If Minho was lying just to make them feel like they didn’t have that tough of a journey ahead, Winston would gladly accept that, no questions asked.

They have camp set up for the night, sky steadily darkening. The group is huddled around the fire, (thank you, Thomas and Gally) trying to pick out their new constellations from the sky. So far, they’ve managed to settle on about five distinct ones that everyone agreed looked roughly like what everyone else was saying.   
Winston sits down between Sonya and Rachel, shuffling forward so he can lie back comfortably and tilt his head up toward the sky. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust, but within a few seconds the stars come into view. There’s millions of them all scattered around, a thick band going across the middle of the sky. “The milky way?” he wonders aloud.

“That’s it,” Gally says, leaning slightly over Sonya. “You do know we’re still in the Orion arm of our galaxy, right?” His eyes are saying  _ please tell me you know that _ .

“Yeah, I know,” Winston lies. He guesses it makes sense - they’re only four and a half lightyears away, after all. Still a fucking huge distance, but relative to the scale of the galaxy as a whole, it was next to nothing.

“Same stars, different perspective,” Sonya chimes in. 

“It’s actually really cool, ‘cause Newt and I are trying to figure out if we can figure out which stars here are which stars we know - well not really  _ know _ , but you know what I mean - from back on Earth, or at least in that perspective, and-” Gally cuts himself off abruptly, eyes narrowing. “Stop laughing! It’s cool!” 

Winston, Sonya, and Rachel are just smiling wide, not saying a word. “Nobody’s laughing, Gally,” Winston says, trying really hard to keep that statement true. 

Rachel props herself up on an elbow. “Yeah, and nobody said it wasn’t cool.”

“You’re allowed to be excited about things,” Sonya says. “It  _ is  _ pretty cool,” she adds after a second, to which Gally softens just a bit.

“Alright, do you guys wanna hear about it? Okay…” Gally starts off on a tangent about distances and vectors and positions in the universe - and while it is really fucking cool, Winston finds himself zoning out almost immediately. It’s not that Gally’s not capturing his attention, it’s just that there’s too many other thoughts flying around in his head for him to not dwell on them. 

They’re finally on Proxima b, and it’s more or less what they expected. Kind of dry desert/valley type area on the plains, and then hopefully some more signs of life up on the mountains. It’s hot down in the plains, and he’s very much looking forward to the cooler climates they’re expecting up on the mountains. He’s not super worried about finding life - if their years of testing and screening and sending supplies told them anything, then that was the least of their worries. 

It’s more the comms situation that puts the overwhelming sense of dread looming over him. Teresa and Aris are trying their best, but they still haven’t gotten anywhere with it, and it’s been almost two weeks since they’ve been working at it. Not that Winston didn’t have faith in them, but  _ still. _

There’s something off about the whole thing that he can’t quite put his finger on. For the comms to be working just fine when they went to sleep and then completely severed when they woke up? It all seems a little too coincidental to Winston. And before, just as he was going down to sleep - that was a little weird, too. Now, there’s a certain amount of trust owed to Teresa - she’s their commander, and she’s also their best friend. Winston’s not accusing her of anything, but he has to admit she’s been acting  _ weird.  _

She insisted on being the last one down to sleep when they all went in their pods. And when Winston did go down, leaving her alone, he could’ve sworn he saw her turn back to the computer instead of getting ready to get inside her own pod. Then, she’d woken up nearly  _ twenty  _ minutes later than the rest of them, and when she did she’d looked like she’d barely gotten any sleep, despite being down for over two years.  _ Then,  _ when Thomas told her about the comms, it seemed as if she’d already known. And since then, she’d dedicated every second possible towards fixing them.

There’s something she knows that the rest of them don’t. Winston is almost sure of it. And that’s not - it’s not a bad thing, like she’s hiding it. It’s just something she knows, and has decided to take on all by herself. And he’s not sure if  _ that’s  _ a good thing. They’re supposed to be there for each other in every way possible. Working the problem is wholly ineffective if it’s just one person, that’s why you never get sent to space alone. 

Winston supposes she’s always been like this, in a way. Teresa is great when it comes to group work - she has no problem with it. But whenever it’s something she deems her ‘own’ problem, she has a tendency to isolate herself, to not want to bother or burden others with her problems. When the news about her and Brenda started reaching the personnel at WCKD, she’d insisted that she and Brenda deal with it on their own, despite the rest of the AV club’s (quite persistent) offers to face the adults together, as a group. Whenever she messed up an exercise or a sim, she made sure none of the others were kept late to help her figure out where she went wrong.

So that probably means that whatever went wrong with the comms, Teresa thought it was her fault. And probably directly, too - while she definitely was diligent in making sure her mistakes were fixed by herself and only herself, she didn’t delude herself into thinking things out of her control were her fault, too. She definitely thinks this is something she  _ did _ , actively.

And Winston has no idea what the hell that is, exactly. And he’s not sure if he ever will, knowing Teresa. But he does know that she will work herself into the ground trying to fix it. 

He sighs, looking back up at the sky. In the south, he can make out the faint shape of a sword. Brenda’s constellation.  _ If you’re out there watching,  _ he thinks, half to himself and half up to the stars,  _ please help us. We need it. _

  
  


The sun has been set for about four hours when Thomas decides to pack it in for the night, crawling into one of the tents they’d set up a couple of hours prior. They’d be starting up the mountain tomorrow, and he wanted all the rest he could get. Pushing away thoughts of comms and supplies and voyages, he stretches out on the floor of the tent and curls up against an already-sleeping Newt, closing his eyes and falling asleep almost immediately.

He dreams.

 

_ He’s standing on a cliff face, looking out onto the plains. Their plains. The ocean sits peaceful in the distance, like a mirror on the horizon. It’s dusk, and Teresa sits beside him. _

_ Tears stream quietly onto her face, otherwise she’s completely still, completely silent. A console sits in front of her, the screen black. Thomas sits down beside her, cross-legged, and her head falls to rest on his shoulder. They sit in silence for what could be minutes or years, and neither of them speak. _

_ The console turns on then, two words illuminating the black screen. _

_ THEY’RE COMING. _

_ “What does that mean?” he asks, feeling Teresa swallow thickly. They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming. _

_ Teresa doesn’t answer, but she sits up and wipes her face, turning toward Thomas. “They’re coming,” she says, but the voice isn’t hers. Brenda’s, maybe? _

_ Then Teresa is gone, and in her place stands Brenda, dark circles under her eyes. Thomas is standing now, too, right in front of her. She takes his hand and whispers a single, haunting word. _

_ “Run.” _

_ And then he’s alone again, stars blinking as the move up from the horizon. “They’re coming,” they say.  _

_ They’re coming. _

 


	20. u kno i had to do it to em

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> newt reflects, dr. paige makes a decision, and teresa might just have the answer to everything.

Newt awakes with a start, sitting straight up. Panic seizes him, just for a moment, before he inhales a loud gasp. The feeling of panic dissipates almost instantly, chest getting lighter as his eyes take in the sleeping bodies around him. A nightmare? He blinks, trying to recall any haunting images from the night - but his mind is empty in the haze of dawn.

There’s some dull light illuminating the blue polyester of the tent, but not much. Squinting down at his watch, Newt checks the time. Five thirty-three. As his eyes adjust, they fall upon the sleeping bodies beside him - Thomas and Minho - cast in a blue light. It’s silent, save for the soft whistle of the wind and Newt’s own heart thudding loud and wet in his chest. No birds chirping in the early dawn. No cars rolling along the street on their way to work.

What a strange place and time to awaken. He almost forgets - just for a moment - that they’re on another planet. But if he closes his eyes again, he can almost hear the soft snoring of his little sister, peacefully sleeping beside him.

He doesn’t, though. Because this isn’t Earth, and his sister isn’t there beside him. And Newt learned a long time ago that pretending only made things worse.

So he lets out a sigh and pushes the thought to the back of his mind. With great care, he silently crawls over the two tangled bodies and unzips the tent, slipping out without a disturbance from the inside.

Proxima Centauri lingers just below the horizon, hiding from view. Newt supposes they’d be able to see it from the top of the mountains, watching it glow in all its brilliance before the valleys can be awoken. But there’s something about sitting cross-legged on the shadowed ground, soaking in the cool purple-blue haze of dawn that Newt can’t quite describe. There’s a certain serenity to it.

He sighs once more, calmer, and pulls his knees up to his chest. The soil here is softer, moist in the morning air. The heels of his boots sinking into the ground ever-so-slightly, he stares out into the distance, back from where they came. A few straggling stars twinkle furiously in the South, trying their best to be seen in the growing light.

Newt finds another sigh escaping his lips, and he lets his eyelids fall closed for just a moment. He normally hates this kind of thing - the neverending kind of quiet that stretches on forever, the peace of early morning. Reflection. It’s much too easy for his thoughts to run free, escaping their the neatly drawn boundaries he had ever so carefully constructed in his mind.

But god, is it ever easy to let them just _go._

Sitting there, in the early dawn, he realizes a few things. The first one being he has not one single clue as to how he feels about the planet - the sun that wasn’t the sun nearly rising, the pillars of rock climbing into the sky behind him, or the far off ocean that could be teeming with microbial - or not microbial - alien life, or completely sterile. He waits for the tingle of excitement the creep up his arms, but there’s nothing. He doesn’t bounce with excitement, like Sonya, or stumble over his words, too slow to catch up with his thoughts, like Thomas.

He doesn’t feel anything. Even staring into the glow of a foreign sun, Newt feels nothing.

The reason why (maybe, he doesn’t really know, but it’s as good a bloody theory as any other at this point) lies in the jarring realization that he’s never actually thought he’d live to see the day any of it came to fruition. Not like expecting to die was that worrying or out of the question, at least in any of the crew’s cases, but it wasn’t exactly that, for Newt. He can’t put his finger on it - the exact feeling or expectation or _whatever_ it is he must’ve had subconsciously - but he’s now painfully aware of its presence.

It’s not any specific reason or circumstance he imagines himself having gone through as to not make it to Proxima b, but more along the vein that he never imagined himself being there in the first place. Everything the planet stood for - freedom, safety, paradise - they’re concepts he realizes he’s never associated with himself. They don’t belong to him.

But maybe - just maybe - they could.

  


> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 234.3.3, Time 1807**
> 
> **TO: Partners, Astronomical Ventures**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: Dismissal - MCH23, MCH24**
> 
> Hello all. Regularly, I would not notify unaffected partners of the dismissal of unit-specific members, but I feel this is a special circumstance.
> 
> As several of you may know, our commander and executive team member of project Back-Up, subject A1, Teresa, was romantically involved with one of our engineers working on Back-Up, MCH24 (Brenda Despain). Though I and several members of the executive project team have had our concerns with the nature of their relationship over the years, we have consistently decided not to further act on the matter for several reasons.
> 
> However, sadly, it has recently come to light that our concerns were not ill-placed. In addition to A1’s precariously erratic emotional response (though subsiding, now it seems) to their initial separation, it’s been discovered that MCH24 has been actively working in opposition to our mission objective. Full transcripts will be made available upon request, but in short, MCH24 (with the aid of MCH23) has attempted to ‘warn’ the subjects of the 231.10.8 Communications movement, and up until yesterday has been working to sabotage our efforts in that domain.
> 
> It is with a heavy heart that I must terminate MCH23 and MCH24’s association with WCKD, effective immediately. Though they were both a large part in our getting this far, we can not allow our mission to be compromised any further. They will be released with no further punishment (as I believe anything outside these walls is punishment enough), but they will be monitored closely to prevent any and all re-entry onto the premises.
> 
> I understand that both MCH23 and MCH24 grew to be very well-liked within the AV department, but I urge you to resist any effort at contact they may make. We must keep our sights focused on our goal, and not let any distractions hinder that. If you feel this may be difficult for you, there are specialists within our psychiatric department who will meet with you by appointment.
> 
> Thank you all for your understanding in this trying time. Do not lose sight of what we’re so close to accomplishing.
> 
>   
> 

Teresa nearly falls backwards and topples all the way down the mountain about a million times in the span of just two hours. She blames the backpack - stuffed as full as possible until every single seam looked just a poke away from bursting open - for her multitude of near deaths. It weighs down on her shoulders, the unbearable ache of the first hour and a half of her climb now replaced by a more worrying numbness.

After the first few scares, a very wary Minho had stubbornly placed himself directly behind her, hands ready to shove her, backpack and all, slamming into the face of the mountain at the first sign of tipping. Though she had insisted multiple times that she was fine without the assistance, part of Teresa is secretly thankful Minho’s still trudging right behind her.

They’d started out the hike with the ten of them all huddled together, but pacing had proved to be quite the issue, especially when it came to comparing the average stride lengths of say, Gally and Rachel. It only took a measly seven minutes before complaints started to litter the rock face (Teresa counted, Aris won the bet). So, as Commander, Teresa decided that she, Gally, Minho, and Aris would take the lead, the rest slightly behind. Besides, they could cover more surface area that way. The lower reaches of the hike were fairly mild, and though there were obviously no clear-cut paths to follow, there were actually quite a few different possible routes, admittedly some more challenging than others.

However, as they climbed higher and higher, the hike started to get considerably more difficult, a fact Teresa finds herself painfully aware of. Each step she takes is calculated and careful, one wrong move possibly resulting in her final tumble backwards.

The idea hits her just as the wind picks up. _Too heavy backpacks. Being a kid with too much to carry. Classes. Classes!_

It’s more of a memory than an idea, really, but it might be everything.

“Aris!” Her voice is a bit more strangled than she would’ve liked, but Teresa doesn’t care. Everyone stops their own little conversations and turns to her like she was some kind of wailing child. She doesn’t care. “Aris!” she yells again, navigating her way up to him as quickly as possible, mind racing all the way.

“Yes?” Aris inquires, carefully, looking down skeptically at the now panting Teresa as if she was drenched in mud like some kind of swamp monster.

She just smiles. “I think I have an idea.”

His face changes instantly, blinking about a million times in one second. “For the code?”

She nods frantically, grabbing his now outstretched arm and pulling herself up to his level, marching up the mountain. “I think so,” she says over her shoulder, excitement colouring every inch of her being. It feels strange and foreign, but incredible nonetheless. She knows the buzz of energy in her fingertips, like the ghost of emotions lone gone. Oh, wait, she knows exactly what it is.

It feels like getting back to Brenda.

_Maybe._

“And?” Aris’ fingers linger on her wrist, now looking _up_ at Teresa, eyes wide and expecting. Another beat passes in silence. “What is it?” he nearly demands, getting impatient.

She laughs, pure exuberance running through her for the first time in literal years. The more she thinks about it - the simple, seemingly meaningless exercises they were made to do in the earliest of their coding classes together - the more it makes sense. The memories are cloudy, but they might contain exactly what she needs. Finally, she stops, pausing on a steady-looking boulder. She turns to Aris and puts her hands on his shoulders, squeezing lightly. “Aris,” she says, pure happiness pouring out of her as she speaks, now fully believing every word she says. “the comms, the code. What if it wasn’t them, Aris, what if it was _us_?”

Just as the confusion begins to melt from Aris’ expression - just as he begins to _realize_ \- they hear the scream coming from farther down the mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! woops


	21. buy and sell gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a member of the crew is hurt.

The shrill sound pierces through the air, thin and strangled for just a moment before it cuts off abruptly. Aris’ stomach jumps up into his throat and he and Teresa share a look of pure terror before they both go bolting down the mountain, essentially sliding down on the loose gravel.

The rest of their friends are already gathered around the source of the noise, Gally sliding down right behind them. Aris can’t see anything - just a mass of bodies peering down at what looks like a drop in the cliff face. He stops breathing, and forces himself to close his eyes for just a second. One deep breath later, he starts counting heads, a familiar exercise. 

Thomas, kneeling down. Harriet, hovering just above him. Sonya and her whitish hair shining right beside Winston, hands on his hips. Rachel’s long, dark braid. Minho, maneuvering his way over to the centre of the action. Then Gally, Teresa, and Aris himself -

It’s Newt. God, it’s Newt.

Aris almost expects there to be a string of curses, half of them utterly nonsensical or containing the word ‘bloody’ at some point, but there’s only silence. And somehow, that’s all the more terrifying. 

Teresa pushes forward, stopping a couple feet behind everyone. The cluster opens to face her. “What happened?” she asks, urgency flooding over her facade of calm. 

It’s Thomas that speaks up, with a voice to match his hands, fluttering like a leaf in the wind. “He was standing there, crouched down looking over the edge.” He gestures weakly to the empty space where Newt must have been. “And the rock just gave out.”

Aris sees Teresa’s head wobble from side to side, her lips moving just slightly - counting. “Newt,” she confirms. Thomas nods. After a moment, her face ghosts even whiter, if that was at all possible. “Is he?” She doesn’t want to finish the sentence. 

“We don’t know that,” Minho says decidedly, as if saying it would will the possibility into reality. “We don’t,” he repeats, even more determination embedded into the words. 

“You’re right,” Teresa says, nodding her head. Commander mode. “Minho, Harriet, we’re gonna find a way to get you two down there safe. Winston, stay close, Newt’s gonna need your help once we get him up here. Get out any medical supplies you have on you. Everyone else, back up, we don’t need anyone else getting hurt.”

And just like that, the crew is a  _ crew  _ again, moving and working in perfect sync towards one goal. Minho and Harriet shed their backpacks, Sonya hefting them to the side, out of the way. Gally helps Minho into a climbing harness, and Thomas prepares a first aid kit to send down. Aris edges closer to the now-crevice, peaking over the side. 

His lunch nearly goes down it. Lying at the bottom of the drop - ten feet, maybe - is Newt, completely motionless and covered in dust. Aris can see it play out in his head in sickening detail - Newt, standing on the edge. He takes a moment to look back at where they came, just taking it in. He crouches down, curiousity getting the better of him. What was down in the ditch? And then the rock splits, and-

“Stop,” Teresa says, firm voice pulling Aris from his hellish daydream. She grabs his hand, hefting him up from his spot sprawled on the ground. “Don’t do that to yourself. Distract,” she continues, leading him over to flatter, sturdier ground and seating him (rather forcefully, Aris must say) in the red dirt. “Tell me the code it would take to implement an instant messaging network over our EVA wrist consoles using satellites on WCKD-1.”

Of all the things Teresa could have said to Aris in that moment,  _ that  _ was not something he’d have thought was included. “What?” he asks, incredulous.

“You heard me,” is all she says, crossing her arms, knees touching Aris’ as they both sit cross-legged.

He still doesn’t understand. “You want me to write  _ code _ when Newt might be-”

“Aris! Jesus fucking christ, just tell me the goddamned-”

“Fine!” he yells, squeezing his eyes shut. If Teresa wanted to work on their fucking  _ comms  _ problem while Newt was potentially dying, then that was her messed up thing. But he obliges anyway, the words spilling out of him like water from a faucet. 

Within the minute, Aris is verbally constructing the framework for one kickass messaging system. Why they’d need it when they already had an intercom of sorts inside their EVA suits, Aris has no idea, but he does it anyway. They probably looked like aliens, just sitting there chanting miscellaneous code, but Aris doesn’t care. He can feel his heart rate starting to slow already, the panic easing out of him like -  _ oh.  _ He understands. 

Teresa really was kind of extraordinary. 

 

By the time Minho and Harriet are ready to venture down into the crevice, everyone’s mind is fully into gear and set only on the task at hand. No more panic or shock - just  _ focus.  _

“Starting descent,” Minho announces giving the rope attached to his harness a final tug before stepping down onto a lower ledge. His feet move gingerly - a fashion so truly un-Minho that it’s strange for Aris to watch - as he lowers himself, pebbles and dust scattering with every step. 

Harriet follows after, tracing his exact footsteps. She slips once, but catches herself before her rope can go taut. Aris almost expects a  _ hey, watch the dust on the hair here, footloose _ , from Minho, but no banter is exchanged. There’s no way in hell he’s forgetting the reason he’s down there in the first place.

A tense fifteen seconds passes by with not a single sound except breathing and boots scraping along rock, and then Minho chokes on a gasp. “He’s alive!” 

A collective breath is exhaled and Aris feels tears burning behind his eyes. Before the relief can die down, Harriet calls back up. “Winston, we’re gonna need you down here.”

Winston’s game face is back on instantly, relaxed smile dissolving into a strong, steadfast expression. “Coming down,” he says, shedding his backpack and reaching inside for the proper gear. 

“Bring…” Harriet starts, trailing off. Aris swallows the lump in his throat - if she was this unsure, then Newt might be seriously-

“Bring everything.”

>   
>    
> 
> 
> **LOG ENTRY 008562002 | ID A8 WINSTON | 234.3.5**
> 
> It’s bad. It’s really bad. He hasn’t woken up yet, but I don’t know how much better anything’ll be when he does.
> 
> Basically what happened is this: he was climbing - a little out from the group, according to Sonya, and the rock he was standing on just gave out from underneath him. He fell with it. Once everything settled, Minho and Harriet went down to get him, and then they called me.
> 
> I can’t even type this right now, I feel sick. His leg. God, his fucking leg. It must’ve hit a rock on the way down, because it was bent completely the wrong way, right at the knee, in a sickening way that nobody’s leg should ever be bent. We’re lucky it didn’t get crushed by any rock - he was on top of most of it, thank god. But fuck. I had to set it right then and there, putting the bone back in its proper position. To be honest, I’m not sure how good of a job I did. WCKD taught me the basics of medicine, but like most things involving a voyage to a new planet, there was no actual practice, all theory. 
> 
> I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forget the way Newt screamed when I had to set his leg. He sat straight up - crushed Minho’s fingers, I’m pretty sure. I’ll have to check those out later. It lasted only a second before his head fell back (the fall significantly softened this time, again, Minho) and he was gone again, just like that. We got it into a splint after that pretty easily. His leg will heal. That I know, at least.
> 
> I’m less concerned with the bone and more with the skin. On the way down, the skin on his shin got kind of… Ripped off? Ripped off. God, fucking god. Newt’s skin got ripped off. It’s not super deep - really superficial, only, but it’s a lot of exposed surface area. I’m really scared, if I’m being completely honest. We have medical supplies, sure, but it might not be good enough. Aside from only having really basic stuff - we don’t have that  _ much _ . WCKD didn’t anticipate something like this. This - this’ll take weeks to heal, maybe even months, to get it completely, and we don’t have months worth of bandages, or months worth of antibiotic. 
> 
> Speaking of which - I’m really, really worried about the whole infection thing. We have  _ no  _ idea of what kind of bacteria is on this planet, or if there’s anything potentially harmful in the dirt or the rocks, both of which are still embedded into Newt’s skin. We tried our best to clean it, but we haven’t hit any of the streams yet. I can tell everyone is trying their best to keep it together, but it’s starting to get really hard to pretend we’re okay. 
> 
> We’re camped out again for now. Gally and Harriet are starting to get the fire going, while Sonya and Rachel pitch the tents. I think Aris is helping. Newt’s still out, but I’m guessing he’ll wake up sometime tomorrow morning. Afternoon, maybe. Thomas, Teresa, and Minho are with him now. I think we’re gonna take the day to sort everything out tomorrow before we move on with everything. 
> 
> I really, really hope he wakes up tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)


	22. gay campfire scene 2.0 REMIX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> newt wakes up and the venture upwards continues.

Thomas is standing at the fringes of their camp for the night, gazing up the mountain, scanning the face for any sign of figures descending. They’d decided that they would spend the day resting and regrouping before the last stretch of their journey tomorrow. Sonya, Harriet, and Gally had decided to take advantage of the day and make half the climb up, searching for a small freshwater lake Minho insisted would be nestled into the mountain. He and Aris had joined the three, setting off to reach the  _ top  _ of the mountain, dropping some of their now unneeded supplies there so they could accommodate for carrying Newt up.

Sonya’s group had come back about two hours ago, while Minho and Aris were due back any moment. Thomas can’t help but let worry seep into him, trying his hardest not to imagine all the things that could go wrong up there, just the two of them on uncharted territory. 

It was late afternoon by the time Newt finally woke up, drowsy and disoriented. Despite his protests, Winston had gone through a full neurological exam the moment he was conscious, checking for any signs of head trauma. So far, they were in the clear. Since then, Newt had been drifting in and out of consciousness, waking up every now and then to wince in pain - the leg - or ask Winston to go through what happened to him, again. Thomas had stayed by him for the majority of the day, crossed-legged beside his sleeping friend. He felt bad not helping out around the camp like the others, but he chose the shit work so he could be with Newt. 

Inventory. That was the shit work. Boring - insufferable, almost - but it had to be done. Incessantly meticulous bookkeeping was a part of surviving space travel - keeping track of food eaten, supplies used. Mission procedure vs. how things actually went - not that that was super applicable in their current case - not like there’s a protocol for colonizing a new planet. But hey, Thomas tried his best. 

As the sun sets, he goes on a walk to a lower stretch of the mountain, a flat area they’d gone by just yesterday. Stars glinting into view, he passes Teresa, seemingly engrossed in her console screen. “You almost crack that thing?” he asks noncommittally, doubting she’d even hear him. 

He was just about to give up on a response when she speaks, head finally snapping up to meet his gaze. “Yeah,” she says, breathless and smiling. 

He believes her. The image of her hopeful face puts a good taste in his mouth as he heads further down the mountain. 

 

An hour later, he is back at camp, shoulders feeling just a bit lighter. The fire burns high on the pyre, flames almost reaching above Thomas’ head. Newt lies on the other side, eyes staring intently into the center of it, not seeing Thomas at all. He seems much more conscious, now - present. There’s a dangerously familiar expression on his face, one Thomas knows all too well. He frowns, and walks over, settling down beside his friend.

Newt doesn’t turn to face him, just stares at the fire. But Thomas can tell his stony exterior is cracking with every second. “Hey,” he says, softly, putting a hand on his (good) leg.

It’s all Newt needs to break. A fissure opens, splitting straight down his left cheek. “Bloody fucking rocks,” he mutters, but there’s a hint of banter to his voice.

Thomas lets out a quiet laugh, heart not really in it. “Yeah,” is all he can manage, feeling like his chest is cracking open as the bitter smile drops from his friend’s face. They sit there in silence for a minute or two, Thomas watching the the light flicker across Newt’s cheekbones. The boy’s expression sours with each passing moment. 

“Thomas,” Newt says then, voice low and serious. His eyes stare right into him. “I want you to make sure they go through with it. The mission. Not for WCKD, but for them.”

Thomas shakes his head. “Newt, you’re not - you realize it’s just a broken leg, right? You’re not gonna die?”  _ Does he actually think he’s not going to make it? _

“Thomas, look at where we are. Just look. I’m on a mountain with a bum leg,” Newt continues, sighing annoyedly as if what he was implying was  _ obvious _ . “I’m just going to slow us down,” he finishes, quieter.  _ God,  _ Thomas realizes,  _ Newt actually thinks they’d leave him behind.  _ Jesus. Newt had been pretty low on the self-esteem scale before, but this is just terrifying.

“Newt, I-” Thomas can’t find the words to communicate his bafflement in that very moment. He settles for grabbing Newt’s shoulders (carefully, not wanting to jostle him too much) and looking right into his eyes, as if direct eye contact would drive the point home that much harder. “We. are. not. leaving. you. behind,” he says, enunciating each and every word. He feels just a bit ridiculous that he actually has to  _ say  _ this out loud, as if it wasn’t already 100% guaranteed without saying so. 

But there’s just a little bit of relief leaking through the murky dark of Newt’s eyes and it’s then that he realizes that maybe Newt was far more broken than Thomas ever knew, even before the fall. 

“Tom-”

“No! Newt, this is insane. We don’t even have that far to go, Min and Aris went up today, and they even took some of our stuff so we can carry you up-”

“Really?” Newt looks genuinely surprised. 

“Yes, really. God, of course, really. Newt,” Thomas’ voice softens a bit. He feels maybe the most profound sadness he’s ever felt in his whirlwind of a short life as he sees his best friend coaxed out of accepting his own death. Thomas struggles for words. To the group, sure, he could whip up a good speech to get them going. But confronting the deepest insecurities of maybe the one that matters most to him? Thomas doesn’t know what words will make things right.

Newt was always better at this kind of thing.

“We - we can’t give up,” he decides on, liking how it sounds. His grip slides down from Newt’s shoulder, landing on his hand. He squeezes. “ _ You  _ can’t give up. I won’t let you.”

Newt swallows then, and Thomas knows that he’s won over the other boy’s insecurities - at least for now. His eyes soften and his mouth melts into the smallest smile. “Thanks, Tommy.”

  
  


The final stretch of their journey starts much more carefully than before. Gally, as much as he hates to say it, is grateful for Minho’s decision ( _ brilliant, incredible decision,  _ according to Minho himself) to bring up some of the heavier supplies the day before. Now all he had to carry was Newt. 

It was kind of hard to maneuver the makeshift stretcher - really just a glorified amalgamation of random supplies meant to work as a portable surface for him to lie on - and Gally had to trek quite a bit more gingerly up the mountain than his patience allowed. And the fact that he had to share the carrying duties with Minho was a little less than satisfactory to say the least, but he would do anything not to have a thirty pound backpack weighing down on his shoulders.

Besides, Minho and Newt’s constant bicker-flirting (to be honest, Gally didn’t really know what category their banter fell under. It sure was something, though.) was kind of amusing. He even contributed to the conversation at times. And Newt seemed to be feeling better, physically and emotionally. And to Gally, that was worth all the meticulously placed steps in the world. 

He was asleep now, face buried into his own shoulder, curled up as much as one can be with a splint on their leg. From what Gally can see - he’s on the wrong side - Newt looks peaceful. He and Minho continue with their coordinated wobble up the mountain, softly announcing each ledge and slippery step. Gally’s not quite sure how Minho manages it, but he seems to be watching Newt’s face with each move he makes, monitoring for any signs of silent distress all the while inching up the mountain. 

He’s unsure as he speaks. “You think he’ll be alright?”

Minho nods, steadfast. “I know Newt. He’ll get through this,” he says, expression serious. It’s true - Minho knows Newt in a way that Gally knows he’ll never be able to understand. Ever since Newt had come to WCKD, really, he and Minho - and Thomas, too, now that he thought about it - the three of them had this special thing Gally was pretty sure he’d never witness again, even if he had lived out a normal life outside the walls of WCKD in a world where the sun didn’t scorch the Earth. 

Gally nods along with him, hoping to god Minho is right.

 

An hour later, the starshine is dimming against Gally’s back as the air begins to grow cold. There are shouts from up above - Teresa and Thomas, cheering.

Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> newt and thomas? in love? more likely than u think


	23. spilling over the edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dr. paige watches, and the code is cracked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things!! are!! happening!! thank you for sticking with me this long - were almost there fam

> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 234.3.7, Time 2058**
> 
> **TO: Executive Team, Back-Up**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: EXPD-1 Progress**
> 
> The crew seems to be doing well with phase four of the mission. The bulk of our information is now coming from the crew’s own personal logs, automatically uploaded back to us, and all status updates and mission reports saved on the mission consoles. Though we don’t have direct communication, this indirect form of knowledge acquisition has proved to be quite telling.
> 
> First of all, our original estimate for supply mission ENDURE was fairly accurate, landing just on the border of our 50km error radius. At this point, the crew is believed to be heading up the face of the mountain (position marked on attached map, created by A7) stretching the northwest quadrant, above the largest body of water. Though we are a day or two behind in receiving signals, I believe they will reach the summit - and the supplies - within the week.
> 
> Crew response to initial discovery of supply location were as expected, and time between recollection and arriving at a solution was quite outstanding. We’ve done well in teaching our subjects how to “work the problem”.
> 
> Several personal anecdotes/things of note from the personal logs have been collected here:
> 
>   * The moment they all removed their EVA suits upon surfacing smelled distinctly “like ass” (A7). Perhaps looking into further research on body temperature regulation would benefit future expeditions.
>   * The crew has already begun defining and naming constellations.
>   * The regolith at the landing site (dry valley) tastes slightly metallic (B1).
>   * Majority of the subjects are eager to explore the rest of the immediate area, seeing the main mission objective as “kind of annoying, given the amazing circumstances, but understandably necessary” (B6)
>   * Animosity towards WCKD has seemed to grow (or, perhaps, come to light) with the amount of time spent with “failed communications”. This train of thought will be monitored closely.
> 

> 
> Another area of note to keep an eye on is A1’s lack of log-keeping. Since the Wake-Up, A1’s log frequency has decreased quite rapidly. This is concerning and out of character for A1, who was known to be quite diligent about keeping regular journals during her stay at WCKD (scans available upon request). Her logs since the landing on Proxima b have been quite curt, and lacking in personal detail. It has been revealed by other crew members through logs that Teresa appears to be “trying to fix the comms”. Any developments on this front are to be reported to me personally and immediately.
> 
> I await the coming data input with great anticipation. So far, the subjects have done exactly as we have trained them to do, and we can consider that a small victory on our part. Through the adversity, never forget what we here at WCKD have done, and as we move on with the implementation of phase four b, remember this feat.
> 
> Everything is on track.
> 
>   
>    
> 

It should be amazing, watching the pre-launched supplies almost build themselves into a shelter, but Teresa’s mind is still stuck on five particular lines of code. She’d narrowed it down the night before to just those five measly lines - it was there that the comms backdoor lay. She knows it, feels it in her bones. Her brain is frazzled - burnt out, short-circuited, non-functioning, whatever - with everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours, she can’t muster enough concentration to actually decode the maze in her head.

And she’s close. She’s so, so close. She can feel it lingering on the edges of her consciousness, taunting her as it sits there right in front of her eyes. She’d given up on her console the night before, resolving not to pick it up again until at least twenty-four hours had passed. She’s almost made it to the mark by the time Gally moves the last panel of the shelter’s exterior into place with a loud  _ click. _

“Pretty fuckin’ neat, huh?” There’s a rare hint of genuine wonder in Gally’s voice, at which Teresa smiles.

“Yeah,” she says, admiring the structure. She had to admit, it was amazing. “You can thank Sonya and Winston for that.”

Gally nods, a sort of  _ oh yeah  _ gesture. It had been so long ago that Teresa herself had almost forgotten - Sonya and Winston had actually designed the shelter themselves, based off of the original mockups Teresa and the other executive members had put together, even before Proxima b had been chosen as their final candidate. It’s a feat of engineering, really. It had been sent out into space like a satellite, cradled in on itself protectively, exactly as it was when the crew had found it that morning. But with just the removal of a few screws and a small amount of rewiring/sparking, their new home literally started assembling before their eyes. Then there was just a few minor adjustments to be made - walls moved into place, gaps closed, solar panels enabled, interior systems booted up and configured - and the skeleton of their new home would lay in front of them, ready to be made livable.

Teresa sighs, wonder finally beginning to rise to the top of the mess of a broiling stew that is her emotions. This amalgamation of metal is her new home.  _ Home _ . The word still doesn’t sit quite right in her mind, jutting out like an organized pile of solar panels sitting atop a god knows how old mountain, otherwise unmarred.

Teresa herself certainly doesn’t feel unmarred. Maybe in some sick, deranged way she is, like the way the universe has so many stars and nebulae and galaxies and clusters strewn across the emptiness like scars, all of these massive  _ things  _ the aftermath of tiny deformations etched into the universe’s fate billions upon billions of years ago before the laws of physics were really set into place, deformations that grew until they couldn’t be ignored anymore and  _ so many  _ of them that if you just look at the big picture it’s pretty much just one colour, one shade of  _ fine  _ that’s so isotropic you can completely ignore the clusters and the galaxies and the nebulae and the stars even if they’re screaming  _ I’m here, I’m here, I’m here  _ like a heartbeat.

So yeah. Isotropic, she supposes.

Teresa blinks back to reality and finds Gally gone, likely off to find Sonya and stutter about how brilliant her design is. It’s incredible, the way he fumbles around that girl. The thought gives the smallest of an upward quirk to Teresa’s lips.

A couple of seconds pass in silence before a hand is clapped firmly to her shoulder.

“I talked to Thomas, he said he’d make sure no one notices if we slip away for a couple hours.” Aris. He’s holding a console in his hands, showing if off to Teresa like he was some girl in one of the old-school infomercials.

She has to bite back a laugh. “Stop, you look like an idiot,” she chides, pushing him away softly.

“Come on, ‘Rese. How ‘bout we finally crack this thing, for good.” His eyes are wide and hoping - Aris’ signature ‘I want something and I’m going to get it’ look - but there’s a particular hint of darkness to them that’s unfamiliar, but Teresa knows what it means.

“Yeah,” she says, tone more serious than she’d anticipated. “Let’s do this.”

 

Three hours pass in what seems like three seconds, and when Minho hikes up to their little hideout/cliff/coding hellscape with two packets of rehydrated ramen noodles, Teresa can hardly believe any time has passed at all.

“How’s reconnecting with the wicked witch of the Earth going?”

Aris snorts a laugh, covering his mouth as he continues to snicker. Teresa rolls her eyes at Minho’s self-satisfied grin, putting her console down and rubbing her eyes until she sees a million colourful dots swimming in front of her eyelids.

“It’s going,” she groans, leaning back against a not too uncomfortable boulder. Minho sits down, handing Teresa and Aris their dinner.

“We’ve narrowed it down to five lines of code that could have been modified to shut off the comms. Right now we’re running through the archives for any files that were kept from early on in the systems that might give us a clue to what it is,” Aris elaborates.

Minho nods thoughtfully. “You guys’ll find it. Don’t worry,” he says, not an ounce of urgency or concern in his voice.  _ Don’t worry, I’ll pick up some more orange juice on my way home. Don’t worry, you only have the literal fate of the human race in your hands. Don’t worry. _

“Yeah, thanks,” Teresa half-mutters, letting out her millionth sigh of the day. She briefly wonders how many times she’s sighed like this in her life. Whatever the number was, it was much too many for a seventeen year old girl.

Minho puts his hand on Teresa’s knee, squeezing lightly. “You’re going to figure it out,” he says, softer, barely audible over the sound of Aris slurping up his noodles.

Teresa smiles back at him, feeling a tiny bit better. “Thanks,” she mouths, not trusting her voice.

“How are they doing with the set-up?” Aris asks then.

“Good, good,” Minho says, “breaking for dinner now, but it’s actually going pretty quickly. We’ll have to wait until the supply probes start coming in to do any real science, but I think Thomas mentioned he was gonna start setting up a lab after dinner.”

Aris moans audibly, throwing his head back in what appears to be immense pain. “Fuck, he promised he would wait for me,” he whimpers, no doubt imagining all the chemistry Thomas was surely doing without him, cackling all the way.

Minho laughs. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t blow anything up until you get back, Aris.” And with that he stands, saying his goodbyes and heading back down to the shelter, leaving Teresa and Aris to eat their ramen in silence before getting back to the (very dire) task at hand.

 

The air begins to cool ever so slightly just as Aris hits Teresa on the leg, slapping repeatedly. “Teresa, Teresa, holy fuck.”

“What, what?” Her heartbeat picks up, pounding in her throat. She shoves her hair out of her face, blinking at the console in his hands. It’s a WCKD report file with a random date, a short introduction, and a page of rather messy code. “What am I looking at?” she asks after a second, the pieces slowly falling into place.

“Eight years ago. Remember when they put us together for the first time?” Aris’ voice is urgent and low, words rushed.

Teresa blinks, remembering. One of a hundred anonymous white rooms, an older, outdated console. A lanky, freckled kid sitting across from her. “They kept the fucking exercises,” she realizes aloud, gripping the sides of Aris’ console. “I knew it!” She was  _ right. _

“Do you remember what they had us write, the second week?”

Her eyes fly through the words, memory growing more and more vivid with each paragraph.

_ Subjects seemed to collaborate well together. A1 shows slightly more advanced proficiency in custom creation, correcting B1’s mistakes. _

Her fingers start to buzz, pins and needles pricking every part of her skin. “You - you messed up the line for the backdoor, it wouldn’t have been possible to implement it from anywhere other than WCKD.” She remembers everything now, down to the exact smell of rubbing alcohol permeating in from the halls.

“Yeah,” Aris breathes, smile putting a crack in the weathered cardboard of his skin.

_ Oh, no, you missed something here, Teresa says politely, a single finger indicating the place of error. You need to add the reversal here so it can work from anywhere. Let me show you. _

“Aris,  _ we  _ did this _. _ ” A not entirely sane-sounding laugh escapes her lungs. “It was us!  _ It was us! _ ” Teresa takes his console and puts it up against her own, comparing the code in the old report to their section of code for the comms in the console.

And it’s absolutely identical.

“Holy shit!” Teresa yells, racing to bypass all the security needed to edit the programming of the comms with shaking fingers. There’s not a single sound except for the frantic tapping of her fingernails on the screen and Aris’ continuous string of swears. After an eternity she finally gets to the guts of the system, and Teresa forces herself to take a deep breath before she enters in the appropriate sequence to disable the block in the comms system.

A beat passes, and then the comms main page begins to load.

There’s no time to celebrate, or even begin to let the feeling of euphoria wash over her before the most recent message loads, eight simple words registering gravely in Teresa’s mind as she dry heaves into the dirt.


	24. memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> teresa tells thomas everything.

Her entire world is still spinning when Thomas hoists himself up onto the small platform of rock, worry creasing his face. Aris lingers slightly behind, looking just as concerned. Thomas says something to him that Teresa can’t quite hear, but he heads back presumably towards camp without a word.

Thomas turns to her, expression softening slightly. She’s still so rattled from the messages - the  _ messages _ , held back for  _ years  _ now - that she barely registers the “hey” that comes from his mouth. She grips the console tight against her chest, forcing herself back into reality with each inhale of the fresh, cold air. 

But Thomas knows Teresa, so he just sits down beside her and rests his head gently on her shoulder, watching the sun begin to set as she begins to organize the overload of information in her mind. She’s overcome with an overwhelming sensation of gratitude and relief in that moment, but how could she not be? WCKD may have taken everything from them - even their lives, she’s realizing now - but they did give her Thomas, and the others. 

There’s a bit of calm in her now, and when she finally feels like maybe she can unclench her jaw without screaming, Teresa takes a deep breath. “Do you remember your mother?” she asks. It’s not what she was expecting to come out of her mouth, but it’s a start.

Thomas lifts his head. “I, uh,” he hesitates, “I think so,” he decides, not at all convincingly. 

“I remember mine,” Teresa says, ignoring his confused expression and choosing to look off into the horizon instead. “She - she told me something, right before she gave me over to Anderson. When she got sick.”

Thomas exhales, silent sympathy falling out of his mouth along with the breath. Teresa had told him about her mother years ago, him his nightmares - they shared everything - but never this moment. She continues on.

“I didn’t understand it at the time. Why she was leaving me, giving me to these scientists. I thought she didn’t want me anymore, like I was broken or something and she was going to trade me in for a new kid.” The last part is said with an almost-laugh, bitterness colouring each word. “I didn’t know she was sick. That she was protecting me. But then she said to me, right before she let them take me away: ‘WCKD is good, Teresa. WCKD is good.’” She laughs for real then, nearly a perfect picture of a normal teenage girl if you had paused the world at just the right moment. “And I believed her. I spent my entire life trying to prove her right, but she was wrong. She was wrong, Thomas.” She finally looks to him, bursting out of her trance. 

“What are you saying?” There’s that look in his eye, the already-surrendered deflation, like he’s only waiting for his assumptions to be confirmed once and for all. 

“I’m saying,” she says, voice hardening, “that WCKD sent us here to die.”

“Teresa-”

“Look.” She taps at the console fiercely, jabbing it a few times before all but shoving it into Thomas’ hands. His eyes widen as they scan the screen. “This is from the day we went down for hibernation.  _ Two hours  _ before.” 

“I don’t-”

“Thomas, just read it,” she nearly begs, eyes falling over the email herself. Reading it again makes her stomach churn, threatening to empty itself once more.

  
  


> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 231.10.8, Time 1807**
> 
> **TO: Executive Team, Back-Up**
> 
> **FROM: Ava Paige, Chancellor**
> 
> **RE: CONFIDENTIAL - Communications with WCKD-1**
> 
> Hello all. I would like to congratulate the executive team of project Back-Up for a successful completion of phase one and launch. It’s regretful that we had to accelerate the schedule of the mission so severely, but I have confidence in our preparation, and I predict phase three will proceed with no further issues. However, there is one slight change I’d like to implement immediately.
> 
> A1 and MCH24’s relationship has been a point of concern for the mission for several months now, and though we have tried to remain uninvolved, I believe now we must take action as to not compromise the integrity of the mission. A1 is simply too emotionally involved with MCH24 and the psychological strain caused by their separation poses a threat to A1’s ability in leading our crew to completing the mission successfully - we have come too far and too close to see the human race fall under the broken heart of a teenage girl. 
> 
> The EXPD-1l crew is due to go into hypersleep in two hours, under command of A1. Once all members are down, we will take control of WCKD-1 remotely and activate three lines of code in the ship’s systems that will “shut down” the communication systems. Once they reawaken, the crew will be under the impression that their communications with Earth have been compromised. It’s frighteningly simple: the code creates only the appearance of an error in communications - perfectly replicating how the system would respond if there  _ was  _ an error in communication - while we still receive all the data back here on Earth. A1 and B1 wrote the code themselves years ago in their intermediate classes. It’s been modified to fit with WCKD-1’s interface and also in order to stay inconspicuous within the body of code of shipl’s main systems.
> 
> Several of you may say this is cruel, unnecessary, or even potentially harmful to the mission. I appreciate your dedication and concern, but I have run through every possible solution and this is the most reasonable one. I would be happy to discuss your individual concerns personally in my office anytime this week. However, this is to remain confidential among executive members - and it should go without saying that MCH24 herself, as well as MCH23, must not obtain this information. 
> 
> Your dedication to this project will not go unremembered. As we head into the next two years of relative quiet, I urge you to remain vigilant in the pursuit of survival. We must do everything we can to ensure the safety and survival of our EXPD-1 crew members. 

  
  


He sits in shocked silence, unmoving. His words come in stutters. “But how does this mean they sent us to die?”

Teresa puts her hand over his and squeezes “There was never a problem with the comms. It was them the entire time,” she says, ignoring his question. Tears spring to her eyes now.

Thomas starts shaking his leg. “It, it was - they did this because of you and Brenda?” 

Teresa knows the anger lying between his words is for WCKD, not her, but an overwhelming wave of shame still flows through her. “Yeah,” she mumbles, voice on the edge of cracking. “But - but that’s not all,” she says after a second, pulling it together. She would have lots of time for self-loathing later. 

“It’s not?” Thomas looks like he’s going to have a stroke.

“No, Thomas. The comms have been “down”-” she emphasizes the word complete with air quotes and a glare “-for two and a half years now. There’s months worth of reports and correspondences they thought we would never see.”

“And?”

“And there’s something else,” she says, swallowing hard. After a moment, she exhales. “Brenda.”

Thomas’ eyes widen visibly. “Brenda? Did you hear from her?”

“Yeah,” Teresa says, a glimmer of something vaguely resembling happiness flashing in her eyes, for just a second. “Before - before I went into hibernation, after you guys all went down, she told me about them shutting off the comms.”

“That’s why you were so adamant on finding a fix,” Thomas realizes aloud, no animosity in the statement (for which Teresa is grateful). 

She exhales again, and scrolls down the screen of the console through pages of WCKD files until she reaches a particular correspondence log. “But she kept sending updates, even though she knew we wouldn’t be able to see them just yet.” 

Thomas looks down at the screen and smiles, eyes starting to glisten. Teresa doesn’t say anything, only bites her lip. She forgets just how much everyone else cares about Brenda, too. She hadn’t even stopped once to think about how the separation might be affecting the others.  _ Idiot.  _

“So she’s been a double agent this whole time?” Thomas asks playfully, raising his eyebrows. Teresa shoves him, and the two of them forget everything else just for that one sweet second.

“Sure,” Teresa gives, indulging Thomas’ strange fixation on old spy films. “She’s - she’s with us. That’s about the only thing I know for sure right now.”

They sit in mutual silence for a second, letting the severity of the situation wash back over them. The first stars of the night start to twinkle overhead.  _ Maybe that one is the star that got us into all this mess,  _ Teresa thinks.

“What else?” Thomas asks finally, somehow knowing Teresa wasn’t finished.

“She says they’re not sending the supply missions. WCKD has been watching the whole time. They fired her and Jorge ‘cause they found out they were trying to help us.” Each one is stated as if it were an item on a grocery list, voice so monotone Teresa almost laughs again.

“Oh,” is all Thomas can say at that point. The two of them have well passed the panic phase by this point, quasi-accepting their fate and just rolling with each shocking new discovery.

Teresa smiles then. “Kept messaging us, though.”

“Oh?”

“The logs. Every time we saved one, it went back to WCKD. She and Jorge went back to their workshop in the scorch, intercepted the signals, and found out a way to send their own back to us.” She wiggles the console in her hands, holding it up to the sunset like some deranged reenactment of the Lion King.

“Fucking engineers.”

 

They sit through the sunset going through all the files together, trying to work out the delay in transmission. All the messages from WCKD had timestamps on them, the latest one being from just a month before. The transmissions from Brenda and Jorge, however, were only accompanied by a jumble of numbers and letters, so there was absolutely no telling how old those were, just that they came after the notice of their dismissal. 

There’s no way to tell how frequent they were sent, as everything just arrived in one massive dump once Teresa cracked the code to restore the comms. But something tells Teresa it hasn’t been too long, and that she won’t have to wait long for the next one. The last transmission warms her heart, even if Thomas made fun of her for it:  _ keep coding, stargirl. i know you’ll find your way back to me. _

As they watch the sun finally fall out of sight, Teresa allows herself to wonder just how the hell they’re going to survive without any of the supply missions. With what they had on the surface with them could last a couple years, and Winston and Rachel would probably have some agriculture going within a few months, sure, but that wouldn’t be enough.

Somehow, though, in some twisted way, it seems enough for now. In the wake of the chaos that came with the night’s discoveries, Teresa can’t think of a single time in her life where she felt more okay - more  _ surviving _ \- than on that mountaintop with her best friend pressed against her side.

Brenda’s constellation is just beginning to rise behind them when the  _ crunch  _ of boots on gravel causes both Teresa and Thomas to swivel backwards. It’s Winston.

“Guys. Newt’s not doing too good.”


	25. the calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> newt and sonya eat some eggs.

> **LOG ENTRY 008640165 | ID A7 MINHO | 234.3.8**
> 
> You know the one thing I liked about WCKD? There wasn’t a lot. Trust me, the list is extremely short, but one thing that does make that exclusive little collection of things is the fact that there weren’t any rocks. Weird, I know, but hear me out. It was pretty safe there. Not that cranks would be an issue, really - with me there, we’d have more than enough protection - but I guess it was nice to not have to deal with them. But the real enemy, the one we didn’t even think to consider - sneaky bastard - was rocks. Still is rocks. We didn’t have to deal with those at WCKD. Y’know what we have to deal with here? Fucking rocks that break and almost kill your best fucking friends, that’s what!
> 
> I’d say fuck this planet, but no, it’s actually pretty cool. Rocks are in the wrong here. Fuck rocks. Fuck fucking shitty ass rocks that are weaker than they look and break and fall and fucking. Fuck. Christ. 
> 
> I don’t know if Teresa managed to fix the comms with Aris last night, but if anyone from WCKD is reading this right now, fuck you! Fuck you for sending us to a planet with shitty rocks. Fuck you more for trusting a bunch of teenagers to save the human race. We never could have been prepared for this. Any of it. We should be going to fucking prom and fighting with our fucking parents and making out with our fucking boyfriends and fucking girlfriends and failing our fucking classes and getting into fucking college right now. Not this. 
> 
> God, I hope you’re reading this. Dr. Paige, especially. You must know I never liked you, right? You’re bad. In every way possible. Not only are you and your band of idiots responsible for Newt’s physical condition, (which, by the way, is fucking  _ bad _ ) you’re also responsible for all the crap that goes on in his brain, too. I’m sure Dr. Trent ( _ he’s  _ okay in my books) can tell you all about that. Hell, you’ve caused psychological damage in all of us. I should be freaking the fuck out right now - my best friend is clearly fucking dying, it’s not just his leg now. I should be crying and worried and throwing up, but you know what I’m doing instead? I’m thinking about making maps and building extensions to the shelter and everything that’s not Newt. I don’t need Trent to tell me that that’s called repression, and that it’s not healthy. Or normal. So thanks, WCKD, for that inappropriate emotional response. 
> 
> So, in summary, fuck you. If my best friend dies, it’s on you one hundred percent, WCKD.

  
  


Sonya almost feels like a normal fifteen year old girl, stacking shelves. Almost. If she was on Earth and not a planet nearly four and a half light-years away, and in a grocery store and not in a state-of-the-art custom engineered permanent living habitat, and stacking cans of soup and not freeze-dried eggs, then sure. Normal as the biweekly blood tests back at WCKD.

Those days seem so far away now, like a distant memory, even though it wasn’t even three years ago that she’d never seen anything beyond those white walls. And only counting days that she was conscious, it was less than a month ago (twenty days, to be exact). But so much had changed in that short time. Hell, _everything_ had change. The past forty-eight hours even would have been too much for WCKD Sonya to handle. She’s not sure when she got used to all the crazy, but all of a sudden she’s not as phased by it. Only when she says everything out loud - _Hi, my name is Sonya Finch, I’m fifteen years old, and I’m living on a planet trillions of kilometres away from Earth. I got here on a spaceship through a rip in the fabric of space, with my nine other friends_ \- does she actually feel insane. But she somehow feels just the slightest bit mundane as she shoves packet of food by packet of food into their new storage shelves.

Newt’s getting worse. She has not a single ounce of knowledge pertaining to anything medical or biological, but Sonya doesn’t have to know how to do some medical thing to know that her friend’s condition is deteriorating, and fast. There’s not much they can do, seeing as their supplies are so limited. But they’re doing what they can. Building the shelter as quickly as possible so Newt (and the rest of them) can have a stable, controlled place to rest is the most important thing, at least right now. Waiting out the supply missions was all they could do next. WCKD was sending everything they needed to survive and recolonize, everything they couldn’t send before or take with them. All they had to do was wait.

Sonya hasn’t seen Teresa or Aris all morning, and she’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. They had gone to work on the comms problem with the goal of cracking it once and for all the night before, just before Newt started coughing up blood. But if they did solve it, then they’d be in contact with WCKD again, and they could help. They would know how to help him. 

Newt sits on the other side of the room, blanket covering his legs. Rachel’s laughing at something he said, too far off for Sonya to hear. He cracks a smile, eyes half-lidded. She wonders how much painkillers Winston has him on. 

Glancing down at her watch, Sonya decides it’s time for a break. 

“Hey, lazy butt,” she says, nearly tossing a packet of scrambled eggs at Newt before realizing how bad of an idea that was.

“Hey, uh, butter fingers?” he laughs, grimacing at Sonya’s awkward stutter to catch the packet, nearly falling over. She flops down next to him in an only partly graceful descent, blowing hair out of her face.

She ignores the incident completely. “Scrambled eggs?” she offers, holding the packet out to him. “Oh, you don’t have to eat it all, I know. But you have to have at least some,” she says, noticing his less-than-enticed expression.

“Thanks,” is all he says, taking the food without another word. He takes a tiny bite and chews it. “They got you on kitchen duty?” He asks after a minute. Sonya nods. “Tad sexist, if you ask me. Thought we left that behind in the 2020s.”

Sonya holds back a snort. “Oh, I know. Trust me, I’m livid.”

“You should bring it up with the Commander.”

“Actually, I haven’t seen her this morning,” Sonya says, just noticing the continued absence. Strange.

“Oh, is that-” A coughing fit cuts Newt sentence short, sending him into a flurry of hacking. “Oh, now that’s just. Bloody hell.”

Sonya peers into his food packet and nearly throws up. “That’s definitely not ketchup,” she says lightly, but a pang of deep sadness runs through her. Newt was so good at pretending he was alright that it was easy to forget he wasn’t. “Here,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’ll - oh, gross, gross.” She struggles to her feet and walks over to the newly set-up garbage disposal. “Oh, I guess this should go into hazardous waste. Blood and all.”

Newt nods with a mumbled ‘yeah’, and Sonya makes her way back to her spot beside him. Sighing as she sits, they share a couple of silent minutes together. “How are you feeling?” she asks, tone sincere.

He considers, mulling over the question. She already knows what that means. “Bit better, I ‘spose.” Lie. But Sonya just smiles softly, taking Newt’s hand in hers.

“We’re gonna make sure you get better, Newt. You know that, right?” He only smiles, just a tiny twitch of muscles, and Sonya continues. “Teresa is probably reconnecting with WCKD right now, and they’ll know what to do. All those doctors, at least one of them has to have one good idea.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“Stop. I bet they’re brainstorming right now. Any minute and Teresa will come in and get Winston, ‘cause they’re gonna wanna talk to him about your injuries.”

“Yeah, and what makes you so sure about that?”

“Minho,” Sonya says with a grin.

Newt frowns, confused. “Minho?”

“Yep. Y’see, I asked him this morning if he knew anything about Teresa and Aris’ attempt on the code last night - you were pretty out of it, I think, but they came back pretty late and wouldn’t say anything about it - and he just shut up like a clam. Wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

He raises an eyebrow. “So obviously that means everything’s gonna be just fine.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But he knows something, and I think that means they did it. It’s just a matter of time, now.” She’s sure of it. Newt chuckles beside her.

“If you say so, bird.”

“Whatever. Lizard,” she retorts, sticking her tongue out at him. “Now, you get some rest. Don’t newts sleep during the day, or something?” She gets up, and adjusts Newt’s blanket over his legs. He just rolls his eyes, but she can tell they’re already starting to droop even more. God, he must be on so much medication. She just shakes her head and sighs, returning to kitchen duty, feeling a little bit more ready to take on the day.

Everything was going to be okay. They just had to wait.

  
  


> **WCKD Memorandum, Date 234.3.8, Time 749**
> 
> We’ve received several updates from crew logs and status reports on the status of A5. Things are not looking well. It appears as though the complications of his accident have been exacerbated due to improper/incomplete treatment and exposure to the elements of Proxima b. It is sure that these symptoms have been further aggravated by A5’s Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (partial medical report on accident and full medical history including synopsis of WAS available through Dr. Cooper).
> 
> Though nothing is for certain, I believe it is best to prepare for the worst. It is very likely that we will lose A5, and I urge you to look to the positive side of things. This young man will have died for humanity, and his contributions will not go uncredited, not by us and certainly not by his crewmates. Additionally, the emotional responses of the crew will heed many benefits in furthering our studies. 
> 
> I’m aware that many of you may have grown close with the subjects during their time at WCKD, A5 included. I’ve arranged a grief counselor to speak with any WCKD personnel if they so wish. 


	26. say something, something like you love me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rachel finds a plant, and newt gets worse.

 

Twenty minutes from the shelter, a tiny spurt of green among the rust causes Rachel to fall to the ground. “Holy shit!” She yells to no one, the path (if you could call it that) empty for at least a kilometre in all directions. Still, she cries out. “Holy hell! Holy green and leafy hell!”

Nose nearly to the ground, she can barely believe the sight in front of her.  _ A plant.  _

She runs the entire way back to the shelter, making it back in just barely under a five minutes, struggling to breathe.

“Guys!” she exclaims, bursting through the door in a deranged, oxygen-deprived huff. She’s met with five faces of varying concern, but all blinking at her silently. A moment passes with no sound but Rachel’s breathing, gradually calming. 

“Well?” It’s Minho, leaning against a doorframe with his arms crossed.

“She only smiles. “I found a plant.”

“A  _ plant _ ?”

“Let us see!”  
“Holy shit, what kind of plant?”

“Like, from the lander?”

She waves their questions away with a hand, slowly walking to the cluster of now-excited faces in the kitchen. Minho, Winston, and Gally scramble to get a look at the lump of dirt cupped in Rachel’s hands. 

“That root system,” Winston mutters quietly. Rachel smiles - she’d excavated it  _ perfectly,  _ getting the entire plant intact. 

A throat clears from across the room. Rachel turns to see Sonya, sitting beside Newt, giving the group a very pointed look.

“Newt, wanna see?” Rachel chirps immediately, already making her way over to the pair. 

He opens his mouth as if to say something - snarky, no doubt - but in the end decides to settle on a simple, “Sure.”

“Here,” she says, settling down beside him, holding out her hands gently. His face lights up, and it makes Rachel’s heart soar. She can’t remember the last time she saw her friend smile like that. “‘M I gonna die if I touch it?” he asks lowly, chuckling.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought about that. But I haven’t yet, so you’re probably alright.” 

Newt chuckles again, chest rattling loudly. His laugh turns into another coughing fit, and Rachel’s heart comes back down, shattering. She closes her eyes tight, willing herself not to start crying. Instead, she holds Newt’s cup of water, waiting for him to be able to take a sip.

He thanks her weakly, repeatedly clearing his throat. She opens her mouth to form some kind of reply, but a new voice cuts her short.

“Hey, Rach, Win? Can I talk to you guys for a sec?” It’s Teresa. Her request is quiet. Not a good sign. And wanting to see the two “doctors” - also not good. Rachel swallows and nods, standing. 

“Yep, just one sec.” She heads over to the lab area of the shelter (which, at present time, is just about as barren as the plains below them) and quickly grabs a cup to dump her newest discovery in. Striding back through the kitchen and toward the common area, she notices everyone, minus Winston and Teresa, now on the floor gathered around Newt. She smiles sadly at the sight.

“Hey,” Teresa says, leaning against the farthest wall. Winston stands just beside the door, next to Rachel herself, and Thomas paces the length of the room. A second later, Aris enters from the hall to the sleeping area, breathing a rushed apology. 

Teresa takes a deep breath. “We fixed the comms.”

A beat passes. “Then how come you don’t seem happy about it?” Winston asks.

“They’ve been watching us,” she explains, solemnly, as if she’d already given up hope on everything. Rachel doesn’t like the way this is looking, if Teresa-

“Wait, what?” Teresa’s words suddenly register in Rachel’s mind. “They - WCKD? They’ve been - what?”

Teresa takes another breath, as if the explanation was physically hurting her. “Last night, Aris and I figured out that they impl-” she stops herself, eyebrows furrowing for just an instant. “They basically blocked our side of the comms so we’d think they were broken, but they were still getting all our data - logs, files, images - you name it.”

Winston looks as if he’s just been punched. “They did this on _ purpose _ ?”

Teresa nods gravely. “We figured out how to disable it, and we got this huge dump of all the data we’ve been missing for the past two years. Brenda and Jorge were secretly trying to help us, but WCKD found out and fired them.”

Damn. Rachel can’t believe it. Her stomach starts to churn, vision blurring suddenly. It all comes crashing down on her.  _ WCKD abandoned them.  _ They worked their entire lives for them - trusted them - did everything for them, and they really left them to fend for themselves? The room spins, and then there are a pair of arms around her - Thomas, maybe, or Aris, she’s not sure - and a quiet voice telling her it’s okay - Aris, for sure. 

A couple minutes later - or maybe a couple seconds, she has no way of telling how long had passed - Rachel’s vision comes back into focus, and there’s a sigh of relief beside her. “Fuck,” she mumbles, head still spinning. Aris, Winston, Teresa, and Thomas are sitting around her. 

“It’s alright, I threw up when I found out,” Teresa offers, smiling. 

Rachel tries not to laugh. “Okay, that actually does make me feel better,” she says. As much as she wishes she could throw up right then and there, she’d have to wait until later. It’s clear that Teresa still has something she wants to say, so Rachel vows to forget the betrayal until later that night.”Okay,” she says finally, “keep going.”

Teresa nods. “They’re keeping track of us. Reading our logs. Minho,” she lowers her voice, eyes darting out into the doorway. Minho sits beside Newt, their hips pressed together, gesturing wildly. Newt laughs, inaudible. “Minho uhm, I guess basically told them to fuck off? He must have written about Newt, because they know about the accident.” 

She looks down. There’s something she’s not saying. “And?” Winston beats Rachel to it.

“And they don’t think he’s gonna make it.” Nobody says anything, letting the shock of it hit them. Thomas’ knuckles are bone-white, his face turning red. Teresa is the first to break the silence. “Winston, Rachel, do you guys know anything about Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome?”

A sharp inhale. “He has  _ Wiskott’s _ ?”

In her peripheral vision, Rachel sees heads turn from past the doorway. 

She has a feeling those tears are going to be coming a lot sooner than she’d hoped.

  
  


Newt knows what is going on. He knows there is something wrong with him, something beyond the leg and the cough. From the moment he heard Teresa say it, just barely out of earshot as he strained to pick out pieces of the hushed conversation, he knew. Wiskott-Aldrich something or other. He has no idea what exactly it means, but he knows what it  _ means.  _

It makes sense. His health has always been a fickle thing, but Newt had always just written it off as a low pain tolerance or a result of the environment he was exposed to, after the flares. But no, it makes sense. The bloody noses as a child, the eczema that still persisted even now, plaguing the inner sides of his joints. The constant bruises, from seemingly nothing at all. The constant ill spells, the special care from the doctors. The extra blood tests. It’s so blatantly obvious that he can barely believe he hadn’t pieced it together himself, after all these years.

An autoimmune disorder. At least that’s what Newt would put his money on, if he had any. It doesn’t come as a big shock - what’s more rattling is that WCKD didn’t tell him - it’s clear that they  _ knew _ , from what Teresa was getting at, but they didn’t tell him.  _ Is that even legal?  _ Newt wonders briefly, but pushes the thought away. It’s way past the point of legality, now. 

He’s dying. He’s going to die. He can feel it in the crackle of his lungs that comes with every breath he takes, with the black dots that dance across his vision with each cough. The accident broke his leg, but it also tore open his skin and exposed him to a whole host of unknown risks.

He knows what is going on.

He’s sitting up against three or four backpacks, comfortably propped upright, and bracketed on either side by Minho and Thomas. The crew had decided to start up a fire in the space outside the shelter - their front yard, technically speaking (the thought makes Newt smile, just a bit). They’d carefully transported him out with them, taking extra care not to jostle his leg. He’d never tell them, but the journey was agonizing anyway. However, absolutely worth it. All of them had quite taken to the whole bonfire thing, having never had the opportunity to partake back on Earth, obviously. Now all they needed were jars of moonshine and they’d be just like normal teens. 

Almost. A general feeling of  _ bad  _ is washed over the group, a colourful mixture of dread, pity, and resignation. It’s the pity that stinks the most putrid for Newt - the sad eyes, just getting glassier with each wheezing breath he takes. No one says anything, but they all know. His condition had been dropping drastically, over the course of that day especially, and now he was beginning to struggle just staying upright. 

“Anybody wanna tell a story?” Thomas asks out of the blue, cutting through the silence. His arm is linked around Newt’s, warm and comforting. He can tell that Thomas is trying his best to stop the trembling, fingers clenching and unclenching every second or so. 

The group blinks at him, everyone waking up from their own minds. Minho breathes a quiet laugh. “Once upon a time,” he starts, rolling his head to the side, making sure he has everyone’s attention, “there was a really bad group of scientists called WCKD. They had these kids that they thought would be the next generation of superscientists, but they treated them really shitty so the kids went and blew up their headquarters and flew away to paradise. The end.”

“I like it,” Winston says, dangling his leg closer to the fire. The group mumbles in agreement. 

“Okay, but where is this paradise?” Sonya asks.

“Easy. As far away from WCKD as possible,” Minho answers, taking a sip from his water bottle. “A beautiful planet with oceans and mountains that don’t fall apart when you stand on them-” Newt has to give a snort for that one “-and a sun that doesn’t try to kill the people that live there.”

Harriet smiles. “And we never run out of fresh food and water, and everyone lives forever.”

People add on to the fairytale one by one, building their utopia from the ground up, free from the clutches of WCKD once and for all. Newt’s eyelids begin to droop, and he smiles softly.

“Guys, I think it’s happening,” he whispers then.

The world stops.

Thomas turns stiff as a rock, pressed up against his side, shaking like a freight train. “No,” he mouths, voice inaudible. Nobody moves, nobody breathes. 

After a long, long second, Minho chokes on a sob, more of a gasp than anything. And with that, the circle is a symphony of stuttering breaths and sniffles. A bit dramatic, if Newt has to admit, but he’s floating far too much to care. He didn’t think it would be like this. Of all the times Newt imagined himself dying - and it’s a thought that’s too familiar to say, moulded to him like a second skin - not a single one of them was like this. Tommy and Minho gripping his hands, Teresa cupping the side of his face. Gally biting his lip so hard he was sure to draw blood, Winston with tears flowing freely down his face. Tears coating everyone’s cheeks, Newt’s own included. Rachel clinging to Aris, the both of them with hands clasped tightly over their mouths. Sonya - god, Sonya, the most bittersweet of smiles painted across her face, a hand gently clasping his (good) knee. Harriet, biting down on her fingers, holding back sobs. And god, Tommy -  _ Tommy _ \- struggling to breathe against Newt’s shoulder, shaking with the force of a hurricane. Out of all the countless times, he’d never thought of it like this, surrounded by his family.

But then again, was there really any other way he could leave this world?

They’re all around him, enveloping him, as if the force of their love alone could save him. But they all know that’s not possible. Not on this planet or any other. In another universe, one where the world wasn’t on fire and they didn’t have to be so much, maybe. But that’s not the universe they live in.

“I,” he’s slightly surprised at how difficult it is to get the single syllable out. His breaths come shorter now, shallower. Like all the oxygen is being sucked away from the atmosphere, leaving him alone on the cold husk of the planet, choked out by the unforgiving vacuum of space. He supposes, in a way, that’s what happened.

“We know, Newt. We know.” Teresa is trembling now too, the tremor of her voice matching that of her hands, clutching Newt’s fingers from underneath Minho’s grip. 

He tries again. “I… I lov-” A single cough, in the form of congealed blood. It inches down toward his chin. “I love you guys,” he manages finally, each word like a hundred-pound weight heaved onto his chest.

He manages to find the strength - from where, Newt has not a single clue - to roll his head slightly, looking each of his friends - his family - in the eyes, meeting their tear-stricken gazes. He thinks to himself, he is so thankful to have been rescued by these beautiful people - these beautiful, incredible souls. 

 

And then, he closes his eyes and lets the calm wash over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /dabs sorry i gotta go my mom is calling me right now,,,,, gotta fuckin blast


	27. Brandr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftermath.

**WCKD CORRESPONDENCE LOG | 234.3.9**

[0045] A7: This is all your fault. I hope the sun kills you all.

  
  


Teresa sits on the edge of her little outlook, staring numbly into the distance. A week has passed since she first discovered WCKD’s betrayal in that very spot. 

Six days have gone by since Newt stopped breathing. 

Five days since she’d seen Minho, who’d disappeared hours after Newt, leaving nothing but a note tucked under an empty glass in the kitchen.  _ I’ll be back, don’t be worried.  _ She wasn’t, strangely. She supposes that’s what she’s looking for, perched on the edge of the mountain, peering out over the plains they’d crossed just fifteen days ago. Minho most likely went - most likely  _ ran  _ \- back in the direction of the lander, with the vague intention of returning with supplies.

She knows this is how he copes, but his absence still feels like a thorn stuck in her throat. 

It’s been four days since Thomas threw himself into the work, logging hundreds of simple soil tests into his lab notebook. The pages are so creased with worry that they almost tear. 

Five days since Sonya gave up talking, and three days since Harriet stopped trying to make her speak again.

Five days since she, Gally, Rachel, and Thomas took Newt’s rigid body to the very peak of the mountain, boring into the cold Earth with their sad excuses for shovels. Five days since Thomas leaned down into the depression to pluck a folded piece of paper from his corpse’s pocket, face turning whiter than Newt’s as he read it. Gally spent the entire afternoon beating his knife into a large stone on top of the fresh earth.  _ Upon your shoulders we stand.  _

Three days since any of them could manage to eat without throwing up.

Two days since Thomas asked Teresa if she thought Minho was ever going to come back.

One day since they’d started picking up the pieces. It was a long and arduous process, but they had to start. If not for themselves, for him. Teresa doesn’t even want to think about the future on this planet - not nearly enough resources, at least as far as they knew - to have sustainable agriculture, at least not on that part of the planet, no link to Earth, and no supply missions. They’re completely and utterly on their own, in the most absolute meaning of the word.

Newt’s absence is like an entire mountain weighing down on her chest. It’s like sixteen years of pouring yourself into an organization that lets you perish, just because.

There’s a big part of Teresa that knows it’s her fault, in some awful way. And in that awful way, it really is. At age eleven, she fell in love. At age twelve, she found out she’d die on another planet. At age thirteen, she decided that didn’t matter. And at age seventeen, WCKD decided that it did. And because of that, they cut themselves off to any inkling of help they could have received - any one inkling of which could have saved Newt. So, in whatever twisted way, that made Teresa responsible. At least partly.

She knows, and though it feels like cop-out, a cheap excuse to shift the blame, she knows part of it just happened, and for no reason at all. Just how the stars aligned to form a sword, just from this one special viewpoint - a random arrangement that would have been wildly different anywhere else in the universe - Newt died. Something about him arranged in just the wrong way so that his body would be susceptible to everything that could go wrong. And it did. 

The same way that the laws of the universe imprinted themselves into the fluctuations in density of the primeval soup of existence, before space and time cooled enough for quarks to settle into protons and protons to bind with neutrons and electrons to form the atoms that made up the elements of the stars, the elements that fused and fused and fused until they couldn’t fuse anymore, exploding into the building blocks of life, life that would coalesce into other stars and gas and dust and planets, and  _ life  _ itself, before all that happened - there was a pencil that dropped, breaking the perfect symmetry of it all in favour of something better, something more stable, and it made things how they are, just  _ ‘cause _ , just ‘cause it fell that way, just ‘cause it happened just like Newt happened and then Newt dying happened -  _ just ‘cause. _

Just ‘cause.

And then, of course, there’s WCKD.

She can see clearly now, how much trust she blindly put into them. It’s almost embarrassing. Shocking. Crushing. Shameful. Enraging. Terrifying. To have been so incredibly obedient, without faltering once. Dr. Paige - though just the thought of the woman, stark white bun pulled back from her stark white face to match her stark white clothes, everything so sterile and sharp - was someone Teresa would gladly have died for, just weeks prior. How could she not realize that that was what she was doing anyways? Voyaging through a tear in the fabric of spacetime, landing on another planet. These were not things that people asked other people to do without being okay with them dying.

They’d sent probes through, but what the fuck did that tell them? Cold, hard mechanics could survive. Computers, shielded by sheets of inches-thick metal. That’s not a ship, glass only millimetres thick separating the interior and the void. That’s not humans. That’s not Teresa. That’s not  _ Newt. _

A burst of rage flows through her as she stands, launching the jagged stone she’d held in her hands over the side of the mountain, watching it disappear from view. Then another. And another. She kicks at the face of the mountain when there’s no stones left, punching until blood runs from her knuckles. It’s not enough. It’ll never, ever be enough. 

It’s foolish to think it, but the thought still screams inside of her.  _ How did this happen?  _ Teresa knows exactly how it happened. She designed it to happen, she chose it to happen. She commanded the happening. She documented it as it happened. 

She bends down and picks up her console, ready to throw it over the edge. Ready to watch it smash, to shatter into pieces like the sorry excuse for a life WCKD forced her to live out. Ready to throw herself off the edge, if that could have meant making it all unhappen.

It shakes in her hands -  _ she  _ shakes around  _ it,  _ Teresa realizes. Red colours her vision. She didn’t know it was possible to be this angry - this sad, this empty, this anxious, sure, she’d been all of those things, but never had she reached such an incomprehensible state of pure unbridled rage. 

The console turns on. 

Teresa drops it cold, hands twitching uncontrollably. Her face meets the dirt, cool and soft. She makes no attempt to move, waiting for the sea within her to calm, or evaporate, or fucking turn to blood. By the time she has enough strength and will to lift her cheek from the ground, Brenda’s constellation is shining over the plains.Teresa coughs, wiping the tears from her face.

She takes a deep breath and grabs the console, pressing the power button. There’s a single message on the screen.

  
  


**[8435905932]: they’re coming.**

  
  


And then, blinking underneath the pommel of the sword in the sky, edging out from below the horizon, there are lights.


	28. what happens now? (epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after the aftermath.

Sitting on the edge of the world, there are two pairs of legs swinging above the emptiness. They bump every so often, warm skin on warm skin like magic. They hold hands, and their bodies melt into each other. There is no one and nothing else, at least not in this moment.

It’s the first time, but the feeling is centuries old, like two souls whose gravity pulls them together, in a never ending dance of stars, ebbing and flowing until finally,  _ finally _ , they’ve collided. It’s happened before, in past lives. But this one feels brand new. Rusted and eroded, sure, but unscarred. Not once dirtied by the mingling of breaths, the tangling of limbs, the whispering of words. It’s softer. Less sterile, though they could never truly escape  _ that _ .

It’s theirs. That’s what matters.

Light creeps forward. Time is almost up (but is it ever really?) A head falls onto a shoulder, freckled and pale. A pair of lips are pressed to dark, cropped hair. They sigh into each other, like coming home.

“I knew you’d find me, stargirl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it. what actually just happened? that's up to you. thank you for sticking it out with me, i hope you enjoyed the story.

**Author's Note:**

> I Have A Family To Feed please leave a comment if u enjoyed!!!! hit me up w yr theories on whats next!!! ask me questions if it made no fuckin sense!! also come chill w me on [tumblr](http://00250.tumblr.com) (also ik this chapter is short as Hell they get longer i promise)


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